So a few weeks back I cut a tree down for my buddy's neighbor. Wasn't a hard job, about a 30 foot oak tree, felled it and cut it up and hauled it out of his yard. He's an older guy, uses a walker, can't get around so good anymore. Was happy to help him out.

So today, was out running errands and got back home and there was a paper grocery bag on my front steps. Nice thank you note and a bottle of Laphroaig Quarter Cask.

Im not knowledgeable about Scotch at all. Have had Balvenie, some Glenfiddich and something else I cant remember that tasted like Canadian whiskey.

I like a good bourbon, rye. Rum n coke, when I'm not drinkin Busch Light.

So I finally relax for the evening and pour some of this Laphroaig.

WTF???

How do they manage to make liquid campfire mixed with cough medicine mixed with salt flat???

Do people actually drink this on purpose??

Yes people drink it.

It's how you virtue signal in the booze world.

Nice gesture! Pour it over some ice. Enjoy!

It's an acquired taste.

you will need to get past the first impression that someone wiped an ash tray with your laphroig.

the third and fourth tasting will get past that, unless you are a smoker, in which case your first taste is like putting the wrong end of your cigarette in your mouth.

been there done that.

a bottle shared is a friend made.

if your remember.

come on by.

Lol yeah, it’s certainly acquired. My technique is let it rest on the ice for a few minutes. It’s peaty for sure. Complemented with a latakia based tobacco pipe, it’s a delicacy.

Not a smoker

Enjoy a lip full of skoal once in awhile

Would honestly rather drink a spit cup than have more of this Laphroaig abomination

I certainly appreciate the gesture of free booze, it was totally not necessary.

Only real men can drink the sexual excretions of the female Bandersnatch in heat.

I love it, mostly because I smoked for 20 years and still crave smokiness.

One of the peatyest Scotchs out there, highly regarded by dedicated scotch drinkers. An acquired taste for sure.

Don't desecrate that fine whisky with ice. That's straight sippin' whisky. Wussies need not apply. It ain't rum and coke sweet shit for teenagers.

I once had a drink with Booker Noe III, of Bookers’s fame. He had his best single malt with a finger of water and 3 cubes of ice.

He said- it’s whiskey- not holy water… drink it how you like.

It’s typical peaty whisky from Islay. My brother said it tasted like a burnt down ghetto house smells. I enjoyed it. Lagavulin is another good Islay scotch if that’s your thing.

Keep drinking it and it'll make sense.

I'm gonna send Conrad a bottle of Lagavulin for Christmas.

Run to the bush lite Carol Anne.......

Too smoky for me. I prefer the Highlands myself.

If I’m drinking scotch, this is my preference also.

It's in my top 4 favorites.
Sip, don't drink.

Damn near spit my coffee out.

My relatives, the Celts of Scotland.


To stop the growing process of the barley, they heat the grain with peat smoke. My brother loves this booze. I can't stand the smell of it.

I have tried it. I thought it was smokey but good.

Agreed. I'll add that a tiny bit of water goes well with cask strength scotch.

Especially the Peat Bog Bandersnatch.

Speyside's are my preference with Glenfarclas my fave. The 25yo is amazing.

An acquired taste?

My great Great Grandfather was from Scotland, and I seem to have acquired my tastes for fine smokey Scotch from my bloodlines.

Laphroaig is a fine treat for me!

Virgil B.

We used to have a floating Scotch tasting party with friends. Some times we'd have 30-40 bottles of good single malts to try. You learned pretty quick not to start off with the Islays if you wanted to taste anything else the rest of the night.

Laphroig is one of my favorites. Your neighbor has good taste 😉

send it to me....

Laphroig is one of my favorites, but the only spirit i drink over ice. Its not a drink for the unseasoned in any way

Once you've put a bunch of water and three cubes of ice in that "best single malt" you may as well have used something basic like Famous Grouse or Cutty Sark.

Horses for courses.

The "acquired taste" thing seems variable from person to person. I loved peaty Scotch from the first sip, as did a friend of mine. I like Laphroaig, but have others I like better, like Ardgeg 10 and Lagavulin 16.

I'll take Old Grandad Bonded

There are some videos out there about making Islay whisky and the fact the nasty bog water used produces the most peat flavor. Still my favorite.

It sure is.

A friend of mine didn't care for any single malt scotch we tried. On a "what the heck" impulse I poured him a taste of the standard 10 year old Laphroaig and he liked it right away. After that he began to enjoy more and more of the ones he didn't like before.

I like the Crown Royal of Scotch, Chivas Regal

LOL! You can't be serious. Cutty Sark... LOL!

So you're saying Chivas is the over advertised, weak sauce for the brand conscious among blended Scotch drinkers?

Sure, for ice and water duty.

Besides those two it could be Johnnie Red, Dewars, et cetera.

Truth ..... I like FG, btw.

Maybe 90:1 water:Cutty makes it good.

Famous Grouse has a better flavor profile for Scotch & Soda than does single malt.

Exactly perfect way of explaining it.

Some folks indulge in the other direction of virtue signaling.

"Oh, I can't be a snob 'cause I like cheap stuff"

"Anybody that claims to have any semblance of a refined palate is a fake, poser snob"

word

I don't like fakers of either genre but if it tastes like gasoline I ain't drinking it.

I just put in a splash of water, no cubes. Will buy Teachers as well.

In th Bush, it's R&R for the win..... .

A friend /co-worker bought his father some very expensive good scotch for his 70th birthday. One taste, and the bottle went back on the shelf and the old man returned to what he had been drinking for 55 years - Cutty Sark. He didn't like the good stuff.....

Perhaps you're missing the point. Good or bad, to your taste or not, it is an expensive whiskey. Perhaps the old gent just wanted to say thanks and picked it up by price, probably something he wouldn't have afforded for himself.

Ha Ha: Islay scotch, heavy smoke and peat. Lots of smooth flavors rolled into it once you get used to it.

Send it here, I’ll drink it.

You were probably expecting Speyside or Highland scotch which is closer to Canadian or Irish whisky.

Famous Grouse has a dark sister as well. It’s the smoky Black Grouse, to see if that bit of change attracts you. Try them side by side. It won’t leave your wallet light. But leave the soda shelved. Never could understand the attraction.

Lol damn harsh

Taste is highly personal so there's no wrong or right answer. However, Laphroaig is highly sought after due to the range of taste it offers. Lots of great complex flavors in every sip. It certainly is intense, and probably not the best "starter" scotch, although it is what I started on. I prefer to mix it 50/50 with good ice cold water, which brings out the subtle flavors. Again, no ice, and be sure the water itself is high quality so it doesn't adulterate the scotch. Nothing better than sitting by a fire in the evening and nursing some Laphroaig. Especially when it is snowing outside.

By gifting Laphroaig, oak-tree-guy was showing you his extreme appreciation for your help. The gift not being the scotch so much by itself, but the opportunity to expand your palette into a new pleasure.

Again, taste is personal etc., but if a person feels the need to add a flavorant to his scotch, that scotch wasn't that good to begin with (or the person just doesn't like scotch). But, whatever; just like rifle cartridges, "shoot what'cha like."

If I was close, I'd happily take it off your hands.

JMHO

If you have to acquire a taste for it, that's double speak for tastes like sh itt. Why bother.

I’ve tried scotch a few times. Cheap and expensive. It’s just not for me.

I think in order to acquire the taste for scotch you have to have a Medicare card.

There's lots of things in life that take some practice to get good at. Tasting things is one of them.

Life is richer when you make the effort to fully participate.

Can’t say I have ever complained about a drink or bottle
bought for me. I never b itched about a smoke I have bummed
either.

If we all thought that way, all we'd ever eat is pablum and all we'd drink is milk & water.

Any scotch from Islay rocks but Lagavulin 16 and Bowmore are the cream of the crop.

I agree... a poseur is a poseur.

I like Famous Grouse just because it has the Alaska State Bird on the bottle...

R&R
40,000 Alaska Natives can't be wrong!

My dad once told me UNC had a football announcer that sometimes ended a broadcast with, "so long folks, I'm headed to the parking lot, gotta family reunion with my old grandad "

I like old grandad myself as well.

Some people put ketchup on good steak. I think those folk wouldn't like scotch either.

blended scotch is horrible, clean your truck tires with that crap

I currently have two blends in my collection that put the lie to that blanket assertion.

Famous Grouse I like.

I am sure it's blended.

It is a nice basic blend.

If I were you I'd sip it slow and see if you liked it...if not keep it in the cupboard. You'll eventually have a friend come along who likes that brand and will appreciate it during the visit.

Surprised he brought you a bottle of Laproaig. While it is a nice single malt, it is rather peaty, which is definitely an acquired taste, as others here have stated. More geared toward the die-hard single malt enthusiast. I would think a bottle of Macallan 12 or The Balvenie 12 would be more appropriate since he didn't know your taste.

Well thanks for that pearl. I'm still gonna pass.

I have another blended scotch that I can't make up my mind about. It's called Monkey Shoulder. It has a wang to it I can't describe. I think its the malt in it.

Islay. No thanks.

Thank you eaglemountainman. That peat-smoked booze tastes like sh*it.

Apologies to all my Celtic cousins in Scotland, but, where did we go wrong? Give me some Makers Mark.*


*Also made by Irish and Scottish Celts in Kentucky. Where did we go wrong?

I drink single malts mostly. I like JW Gold, 18, and Blue. I really like Gold label which is predominately Clynelish so I just bought a 14 year Clynelish single malt. It is better.

I drank JW Black Label for years with ice but now it is a mixer for me. I can't drink it straight.

LOL on the R&R! Lord only knows why that is a hunt camp favorite. Maybe the plastic bottle or sheer volume to dollar ratio? One of my 3 hunting groups brings good whisky to camp to celebrate kills and fellowship, another brings R&R, flavored whisky and or Fireball to camp. The third is a bunch of teetotalers. Different strokes….

My dad, who had enough money to burn a wet mule later in life, drank Cutty Sark. I never saw another scotch in his house, but he would sure help me out on a Macallan when I brought it over. Then right back to the Cutty.

Question .... When adding water (no ice), what ratio does everyone use?

I use 2 parts FG, 1 part cold water for a sipper.

Can’t go Scotch, like Jack and coke

A friend's nephew gave him a bottle of Laphroaig as a thank-you for something. So, one evening we open the bottle. The conclusion was that the liquid they started with for distilling was the sweat off of an old Caribou Bull's balls.

Pretty sure the bottle is still in the cupboard with but 2 small drinks poured out.

If all you've ever had is something like Cutty, I can see why. But when you get a low-peat Scotch, especially one over 10 years old, it has a smoothness that anyone would love.

THIS...And it's PUSSIES

If you like Laphroig, you’ll love Lagavullin.

This.

If you've pretending you are a big wheeler......single malt all the way.

Of course some prefer sweet corn whiskey mixed with high fructose corn syrup and water, with an insulin chaser.

That's of the form "A implies B".

Would you also say "B implies A"?

Roll on big wheeler.....

No big wheeler here, I'm pretty low budget. I guess it's beyond your comprehension that a regular guy can be blessed (cursed?) with a palate capable of discerning and appreciating spirits beyond the mundane.

Hahaha!

No no....continue to call everyone else a sissy and their choices "mundane".

That is definitely not big wheeler behavior........hahaha!

KYHillChick loves Laphroaig. It's her favorite. In fact, I bought her a 1'X1' plot in the Laphroaig flowage. Me? Remember, I'm the guy who likes Scoresby. However Laphroaig is high on my list as well. Yes, I agree, it is kind of like sucking on peat moss, but that's not a bad thing.

Laphroaig deserves to be hit straight or maybe with 3 drops of the branch.

Interesting story behind single malts and it's supposed exclusivity. As it turns out, back in the 1700s when whisky started to get "refined", the blended whiskys were the purview of the upper classes whilst single malts were drunk primarily by the lower classes. Apparently it was more labor intensive and thus more expensive, to concoct the right blends. Speaking of which, Johnny Walker 15 year old is my favorite because it uses Talisker as one if it's ingredients.

It's called friendly ball busting, like what gets said with a smile at the deer camp. At my camp there are guys who could buy and sell me ten times with their pocket change. I rag on the Canadian whiskey they drink.

Then how come you get defensive when I give you shìt Mr Vanderbilt?

You fire one over the bow, so I fire one over the bow. Conversations are two directional. It's part of the fun Captain Blue Collar.

You flatter me.

Captain No Collar more likely.

I drank a bottle of Old Forrester 114 last week.


It was okay. I think I like OGD BIB better.

Part of a bottle of OGD BIB sits front row in my collection. Very enjoyable, and the fact that it doesn't cost an arm and a leg makes it even better for me.

I'll also say I find Bourbon and Rye to be better value for money than Scotch. The entry price for Scotch I'll sip straight is about twice that of Bourbon.

Try Octomore.

Laphroaig isn't shy about their flavor profile. The 10 yo bottle label used to state "dividing opinions since 1815". BTW, I like it, more so in cool weather, neat with maybe a few drops of water.

With a cigar, while sitting near the fire.

Usually means it's not good, until the fourth glass.