Review #104: SMWS 29.249: Sweet Black Tea in the Surgery (Laphroaig 21)

You can tell the favorites in our households by the liquid levels. This one is an exceptional dram (purchased for around $250 from a “last drops” email from SWMS of America). The bottle is one of my personal favorites from SWMS. It’s hard to find a bottle of cask strength 21-year Laphroaig (SWMS code 29 corresponds to Laphroaig), let alone one that has been finished in PX sherry, which is my go-to-favorite combination for scotch: peat-meets-sweet.

Quick overview of our scoring system

Additional Information

• ABV: 48.6%
• Age: 21 years
• This bottling spent 2 years in px-sherry and 19 in a second-fill bourbon cask.
• One of 230 bottles.

About Scotch Malt Whisky Society

• SMWS is an independent bottler that sells single casks of whisky from many distilleries. They’re all cask strength bottlings with no artificial coloring.
• Scotch Malt Whisky Society bottlings are all numbered by distillery.
• SMWS is now 25 years old in America and won the world’s best whisky at SF World Spirits Competition several times.
• They’re based and headquartered in Leith Scotland, where they have one of the most gorgeous tasting rooms in the world.
• It costs a membership fee to be able to purchase their bottles. Generally SMWS’s American arm has much better deals.
• They generally release new bottlings in monthly outturn events.