The latest Laphroaig from Chieftain’s is a 14-year-old bottled in January 2018, though it’s only one month short of its next birthday. The sparse information on the label says it was aged in hogshead barrels, which are usually made from ones that previously held bourbon, and is free from chill filtering and coloring. It’s from a single cask but bottled at 46% so presumably diluted from its natural strength. That reduced ABV probably accounts for the bargain price of $70, a steal for a teenage Laphroaig now that stocks of the 18 have run dry. I don’t buy independent bottlings often but at this price it was hard to resist. I’m glad I succumbed. It pours the color of amber resin and clings to the side of the glass with a pleasant oiliness. The nose is mesquite sauce and pine, a more typical signature than the fruit and flora of the 15-year-old anniversary edition from a couple of years ago. The palate is like a mellower version of the 10, smoother and less aggressive on the peat and not as “dirty” as the 18. The finish is long and sweet and triggered a Proustian memory of Old English Spangles, a boiled candy from my youth. This is an easy drinking Laphroaig that hits all the right notes without demanding too much of your attention. Normally I think 46 is about the perfect ABV for whisky but I wouldn’t mind tweaking this up a notch for intensity and to offset a hint of wateriness on the palette. That said, this is really good. Just think of it as pleasant background music rather than the rock concerts of the distillery bottlings.