This 33-year-old Vintage 1987, Ex-Bourbon Barrel Matured Single Malt is the third release in our series of rare and collectable aged whiskies to celebrate the story of Ian Hunter.
Book Three: Source Protector celebrates the legacy of Ian Hunter, the last of the Johnston family to own and manage the Laphroaig® distillery, and his fight to protect the Kilbride Stream. This is a story of uncompromising guardianship and a battle between neighbours, over every distillery’s essential lifeblood, its source of water.
Having been fully matured in ex-Bourbon barrels, Laphroaig’s characteristic peatiness really shines through the creamy liquorice notes of this 33-year-old single malt, creating a whisky as distinctive as the man it’s named after.
This series of rare and collectable aged whiskies celebrate the story of Ian Hunter, the last of the Johnston family to own and manage the Laphroaig distillery between 1908 and 1944. When describing Ian Hunter, you could very well be describing the taste of our whisky. Both being unique, distinctive, full of character and not always for everyone. But despite his polarising personality, Ian Hunter made Laphroaig what it still is today: a whisky enjoyed the world over by a wide and diverse community of Friends.
During his tenure, Ian Hunter brought together the characteristics of the ancient soil of Islay, the famed nature of the people who live here the art of distillation to set the foundations of Laphroaig and the whisky that you hold in front of you now. Ian secured the distillery’s lease in 1922, broke into America in the time of Prohibition, was the catalyst for a revolution in the use of American White Oak and is the reason why we are still among a handful of distilleries to maintain our own malting floors today. He put his heart and soul into ensuring Laphroaig was a whisky like no other.
Each release in the Ian Hunter series contains a rare and aged Laphroaig, set into a beautifully crafted book that documents a part of Ian’s rich legacy – a legacy that still lives in our whisky. Every year a new chapter is told, uncovering the extensive history behind Laphroaig and the characters who created it, making this a collection unlike any other, and one that is treasured by Laphroaig fans across the world.
Each whisky in the collection lauds a different aspect of Ian’s dedication to making Laphroaig what it is today. Book One celebrates his unique character, Book Two establishes his place as an icon in Islay’s and Laphroaig’s history, Book Three showcases his tenacity and fight to protect the Kilbride Stream, and Book Four honours Ian’s legacy of establishing the malt floors that still impact Laphroaig’s flavour today.
About Laphroaig
Another of the Kildalton triumvirate, Laphroaig is a substantial distillery with seven stills and a capacity of over 3m litres per annum (that’s 1m more than Lagavulin and 2m more than Ardbeg).
Unusually for a distillery of this size Laphroaig has retained its own floor maltings which still account for 20% of its requirements. They have been retained specifically because it is believed that the Laphroaig kiln produces a more creosote-like phenolic character than the malt the distillery receives from the Port Ellen maltings. Certainly, a tarry iodine note is one of the signatures of the spirit.
The odd number of stills includes a spirit still which is double the size of its neighbours. As this produces a different character new make it is always blended in with those from the smaller ones.
A very long fore shot run means there are less estery notes in the new make, while a deeper cut means that heavier phenolics are captured compared to Ardbeg and Lagavulin. Its distinct sweet note therefore comes from the preferred cask type used – ex-Bourbon barrels. These, the distillery says, became the norm at Laphroaig post-Prohibition when Ian Hunter began travelling to the US. The effect of this type of oak is showcased in the Quarter Cask release where a vatting of younger Laphroaigs is finished in small casks. Some Sherry casks are in the inventory and are mostly used for longer-term maturation.
The reason so many existing Islay distilleries came into being before the ‘official’ 1824 start date is down to the influence of Islay’s laird, Walker Frederick Campbell. Islay was less brutally cleared than other islands and as an ‘improving’ landlord Campbell was keen to start new businesses on the island. Islay already had a reputation for moonshine, so legal distilling made sense. The fact that Campbell was also actively involved meant that it was harder to continue with illicit activities.
So, in 1815, brothers Alexander and Donald Johnston built a distillery at Laphroaig. Donald, who ran the distillery, tragically died in 1847 after falling into a vat of boiling pot ale. Laphroaig however remained in the control of D. Johnston & Co. until the 1960s.
Its rise to fame began at the start of the 20th century with the arrival of Donald's great-grandson, Ian Hunter. It was he who, in 1908, changed agent from Peter Mackie and prompted the building of Malt Mill. By the 1920s Laphroaig was being sold as a single malt and in 1924, the number of stills were increased to four. On his death in 1954 he left the distillery to his secretary Bessie Williamson who had been the de-facto manager during his extensive international sales trips.
American distiller, Schenley, bought into the distillery in the 1960s, buying it outright in 1967. By the time Bessie retired in 1972, the number of stills had been increased to seven. A period of passing through various hands and amalgamations ended when Jim Beam purchased it from Allied Distillers in 2005. In the intervening period Prince Charles had awarded his favourite single malt his own Royal Warrant. In the same year, 1994, the Friends of Laphroaig was launched, the first of the modern ‘member’s associations’ phenomenon – there are currently 638,000 members. In a creative piece of marketing – initiated by legendary manager Iain Henderson – Friends were given a square foot of Islay which they leased back to the distillery in exchange for a year’s ‘rent’ of a miniature of Laphroaig which could only be claimed by visiting the distillery.
Beam’s takeover by Suntory in 2014 has resulted in the Japanese-American giant now owning two of Islay’s eight distilleries.
49.9% ABV
70cl
