Laphroaig. Twenty-eight whiskies.

Laphroaig was founded in 1815 by the brothers Donald and Alexander Johnston, on the south coast of Islay. The name is Gaelic and means something like the beautiful hollow by the broad bay.

The house still floor-malts part of its own barley, with peat from its own bog. According to the sources that share is between ten and twenty percent; the rest comes from the maltings in Port Ellen. The peat gives the iodine-like, medicinal smoke by which Laphroaig can be recognised.

In 1994 Prince Charles visited and personally granted his royal warrant. Laphroaig is the only whisky that holds one. Another name tied to the house is Bessie Williamson: she started in 1934 as a typist, took over management in 1944 and inherited the distillery in 1954. Independent bottlers sometimes use her surname as a designation on the label.

The only whisky with a royal warrant, granted during a visit in 1994.

Besides the distillery’s own bottles, there are also Laphroaigs from independent bottlers. They buy casks and decide for themselves when and how these go into the bottle; the result is usually undiluted and different from cask to cask.

Some of those bottles do not carry the name Laphroaig but Williamson, after Bessie Williamson who ran the house from 1954 to 1972. In our online shop those bottles are listed under both names, as the bottler supplies them.

We have nine of them: from Adelphi, James Eadie, Living Souls, Old Particular, Signatory, Character of Islay, The Single Cask, Hogshead and Whisky of Voodoo. The ages range from ten to twenty-five years.

Williamson on the label: a reference to the woman who ran the house for eighteen years.