Welcome back to another fantastic pairing of two single malts! Up for tasting today is the dram behind door number 5 of the Cask Explorer‘s Advent Calendar, Diamond Edition, and it’s a very welcome surprise from Fox Fitzgerald under the Peat’s Beast label, which is a 30-year-old secret Scotch whisky. It’s becoming difficult for me to find a suitable challenger for some of these selections in the most premium edition of this box set, which I purchased for a whopping £750 [25 drams altogether], but so far, there are no regrets! I’m taking down an open bottle of the Laphroaig 20-year-old from my shelves to try it side-by-side and see if it can hold against this monster. It’s an excellent companion for this Friday night, and I cannot wait to jump on this journey, but first, we need music! Now playing: Hawgood | Hüwels | Murray – Day Falls.

As mentioned above, the wonderfully named Peat’s Beast is an undisclosed single malt. But it is a malt from Islay! This means that even though we probably won’t be able to conclusively name the distillery, at least we can have an educated guess. This is an integrity bottling at batch strength – this means that instead of a single cask, numerous barrels were blended together in a single batch, and therefore the final ABV is at 50.6% ABV. As I write this, I realize that as per the rules from the Scotch Whisky Association, the age statement on this bottle means that the youngest whisky in this bottle is 30 years old. But since it’s a “batch”, there may be a few older barrels in there. This is a non-chill filtered and uncoloured beautiful liquid, and although the front of the bottle just says that it came from an “oak cask”, the description on the tin container mentions that “the whisky has been bronzed in the warmth of sweet virgin American oak.” I cannot wait to taste this sample because I own an unopened bottle myself (I grabbed it for £320), and have been saving it for just the right moment, so here’s my chance to drink 30ml! It’s thick and oily on arrival with a beautiful ex-bourbon profile. I cannot pick out a lot of wood influence, so I’m unsure if it came from a virgin oak. Instead, there are stewed apples, smoked caramel, and a lot of sweet toffee with a pretty long finish. I also do not think that it’s as “beasty” as it wants to proclaim – this is a fluffy, gentle puppy which I would cuddle up with every night. Again, I cannot begin to guess what this single malt is, but I can tell you what it’s not. It is not Laphroaig or Lagavulin, nor is it Ardbeg or Caol Ila. It lies somewhere between the Bowmore and Bruichladdich, or the latter’s aged Port Charlotte bottling, and it is a very, very good dram. But let’s turn to Laphroaig!

To be more specific, the actual title of this Scotch is Laphroaig Batch 6 from That Boutique-y Whisky Company (TBWC), and it’s a 20-year-old un-coloured non-chill filtered single malt from this independent bottler at 49.9% ABV. I’m almost halfway through this 500ml bottle, and I absolutely don’t regret spending £325 on it. In fact, you cannot find this anywhere these days, and I think TBWC does not even officially bottle Laphroaig any longer. I’ve seen a bottle with an identical label on it featuring artwork depicting “Back to the Future” characters, and as a result, I can confirm that it is also a [teaspooned] Laphroaig, but it no longer states the distillery name [I think it says something like Islay single malt now]. So yes, this bottle is also special. It also doesn’t reveal the cask type, but from my past sips, I’ve definitely tasted the sherry butt’s influence. The 20-year-old Laphroaig is softer, smoother, even, velvety and creamy. It’s got the elements of iodine and sherry, but they are all so perfectly balanced that neither one is in your face. It’s absolutely gorgeous, with some dried fruit mixed with chocolate and lovely echoes of the smoke. Let’s switch it up and return to the first dram. The Peat’s Beast is a little sharp and definitely ex-bourbon now. With water, there is less spice and now more fruit. To be honest, this feels much younger than a 30-year-old, no doubt from spending its life in an inactive re-fill cask. And I can see how this one started out smokey but, with age, lost all its phenols to those pesty angels. The final mouthfeel is more like soot and ash than iodine and smoke I get with other peated whiskies, including that of this Laphroaig. I turn back one more time to That Boutique-y dram, and once again, it fills my body with its tamed and lovely sweetness and the smoke.

Distillery / Region	Undisclosed / Islay	Laphroaig / Islay
Bottler / Series	Fox Fitzgerald	TBWC / Batch 6
Stated Age / Vintage	30 years old / 2021 bottling	20 years old / 2018 bottling
Cask type	“oak cask” or possibly “virgin American oak”	Unknown but probably ex-sherry
ABV / Cask Strength	50.6% / Batch strength, so probably	49.9% / Maybe
Non-chill filtered/ Uncoloured	Yes / Yes 🌟	Yes / Yes 🌟
Price	£320	£325 [but for a 50ml]

It’s hard to pause, hold back, and not drink more of either whisky. I fight but do not pop the cork on my unopened bottle of Peat’s Beast. Honestly, I am a little disappointed in the former. Again, I had those expectations of a 30-year-old because of the stated age. I think that if they didn’t throw the “30” in your face, I would have been forgiving. And also back to marketing again – the name Peat’s Beast evokes a particular monster. Don’t you agree? It screams those expectations in my face, and that is where the letdown comes to play. It isn’t Octomore or Staoisha, that’s for sure. And something else about undisclosed distilleries has always bugged me in the end. Boutique-y, on the other hand, is honest – from labelling to contents, which I think is liquid gold. I love this bottling so much! I could just drink it all day long, but then again, I’m a big fan of that Laphroaig, and I’m aware it divides. With that said, I’ll pause here and proclaim TBWC’s Laphroaig Batch 6 as the winner of this round.