Description

A 15 year old bottle of Laphroiag whisky. Bottled by Moon Import as part of their Dovr-Toutes-Mares series, a collection of 7 single malts, all labelled with antique cartography. Distilled in 1980 it was then aged in an oak cask before being bottled in 1996. A run of just 760 bottles, this is bottle number 040.

Moon Import was founded in Genoa, by Pepi Mongiardino in 1980 and quickly became famous as an importer and distributor of high quality wines and spirits. Heeding the advice of the late, great, Silvano Samaroli, he opted to be “free from the big companies,” and became the official distributor for Islay’s Bruichladdich, and later Tamnavulin and Tullibardine, preferring however to procure casks from private owners. Mongiardino bottled his first whisky in 1982, titled the Half Moon series. Always beautifully labelled, Pepi is acclaimed for designing the packaging for Moon Import bottles himself, using images found in old books. The famous Birds, Animals, Costumes and Sea series were all labelled using pictures he discovered in an 18th century German encyclopaedia. These iconic designs, coupled with the quality of the liquid saw Moon Import steadily grow in popularity, and with the help of Intertrade founder, Nadi Fiori, they exported their first bottles to Japan in 2001.

Colour: Gold.

Nose:
Roasted almonds and suntan oil, argan oil, fusel oil. Then it’s the herbal notes that take the lead now, lemon balm, fresh mint, dill. It comes in waves, with the coastal elements now, oysters, kelp, big notes of whelks and queen scallops, then camphor, pine resin and eucalyptus.

Taste:
It all starts on all sorts of roasted and/or smoked things. Various nuts, various oils, and then there’s a blast that happens, like a maelstrom of eucalyptus, mint, mastic, salt, paprika, curry, fish tandoori, cough sweets, cardamom.

Finish:
In short they probably invented both the words ‘endless’ and ‘concentrated’ for this whisky.