Ledaig SMWS 42.19 “Smoke threatening the laundry”

Thanks to /u/throwboats for this sample.

This is yet another continuation of my ongoing series that I’m calling “Scotch Malts, Wife’s Selection”, in which my wife goes through my backlog of SMWS (Scotch Malt Whisky Society) samples that I haven’t reviewed yet, pours them blind, and then I review it blind.

Picture this: You’re about to go to a whisky friends house to finish up a swap. You go to leave your high rise apartment, and the fire alarm goes off.

Like all other people who have lived on a high floor, you’ve accepted that a fire alarm means you’ve accepted that running down the stairs isn’t your thing, and you’re lazy enough to trust the fire blocking doors you have. Or the inevitable death from your lack of moving.

However on this day you were going out to do a swap anyway. Thus you went downstairs to get in the car and not live in a permanent klaxon zone. So you leave, getting downstairs, pass by the laundry room to the underground parking, and then exit into a giant wall of burning.

And that’s why I was late swapping that one day. Because Smoke, was in fact, Threatening the Laundry.

As someone who has now run into this very situation, I feel that it’s my duty (teehee) to review Ledaig SMWS 42.19 “Smoke threatening the laundry”. Because if not me, who else? The other 1000 people who live in my building? I think not!

Let’s see how this tastes, shall we?

Price: Sold out

Region: Island

Date Distilled: 10.2006

Age: 9 years

Cask Type: Refill ex-bourbon barrel

Outturn: 156

Abv: 58.2%

Colour: 7.5Y 9/6

Nose: Ashy, pear tart, sour cream, seared orange, lime cheesecake, caramel

Initial ash, lots of nuttiness, some cream, and some burnt orange. I can see why the name was chosen, because we all know that one person who pays extra for the nice scents and we all have horrible thoughts of setting them on fire out of jealousy.

Oh, just me? Okay then.

Like some of the previous Ledaig 9 year old SMWS releases, of which there’s an entire series, we see the lime evolve on the nose. However in this case the ash is more present.

Taste: Yeast, pear, heat, caramel, basil, brine

Interesting taste. If the nose was well polished, the taste is a rock you find that looks like Clinton. Yeah, it looks nice, but next to a piece of art like the Nose, it’s just a rock.

It does calm down, though this is the weak point of the dram.

Finish: Caramel, pear tart, smoke, violet, effervescent, lime cheesecake

The finish pays back the issues that sprang up with the taste. And then some. We have the amazing nose elements again. And the big smoke helps out quite a bit too. It takes the best of youthful drams with their strong notes and shoves them in with some random complexity.

So it’s a rock that looks like the thinker. Or at least like a really nice version of Death of a Salesman.

Conclusion: An odd dram, out of all the Ledaigs. If the others were pulled because they were done, this one was pulled because the nose and the finish were done. And they didn’t want to lose out to that bugger the taste who wasn’t keeping up.

Does it smell like the sudden fear of thinking the basement was on fire? No. It’s much better than that.

None the less, like I’ve said a million times before, try before you buy. I enjoyed this more than the taste deserved. If you’re big into the nose or finish of a whisky, then you’re good.

82/100

Guess: Ledaig

Actually: Ledaig SMWS 42.19 “Smoke threatening the laundry”

Scotch review #830, Island review #99, Whisky Network review #1341