It was only last week when the members of Laphroaig maling list received a letter from John Campbell, the distillery manager, with a full summary of what happened in Laphroaig during 2015, the 200th anniversary year. In addition, in the letter John wrote we can expect a new expression to hit the shelves in Spring 2016, and and a few details were already revealed.

The new expression will be called Laphroaig Lore, and will it be bottled at 48%.

On the label it says: “Liquid drawn from a selection of aged casks has crafted a rich and deep malt with distinctive smoke, peat and seaside minerality”.

What can we learn from this description? Unfortunately, not much but there a few points we can conclude from the available data:

It’s a NAS whisky. Yeah, another whisky without an age statement.

It will be mostly (or even exclusively) ex-bourbon casks.

It’s probably a permanent addition to the line up.

It will probably be launched on time for Feis Ile 2016, just like the 15yo was launched prior to Feis 2015.

There are also some questions without answers: Where does the richness comes from? 1st fill casks or some other methods? Does “richer” in flavours means it will be more expensive? I think we can safely assume it will cost more than Laphroaig Select/10yo and maybe even more than the Travel retail exclusives (PX/Brodir), but only time will tell.