Good evening,
I was just looking at my unopened Douglas Laing & Co. bottle of Laphroaig. I had earlier taken for granted that it was "cask strength". I've now noticed some ambiguity in the labeling on the box...so I have questions...and maybe someone here has answers? This is what is printed on the box and on the bottle (they both have identical labels):
"The Old Malt Cask 50% Single Malt Scotch Whisky Single Cask Bottling Distilled at Laphroaig Distillery Single Malt Scotch Whisky Distilled 1987 February Bottled 2003 April Aged 16 Years No Chill Filtration. No Colouring Bottled at our Preferred Strength of 50% Alc/Vol
*A Bottling From One Cask DL REF 613* This Bottle is One of 294 Bottles Filled From Cask" (There is a little extra, irrelevant fine-print below the quoted material above)Now I'm going to sound like a lawyer with my questions below. (Though I don't mean to! I'm not a lawyer...I'm just curious whether or not this was filled at its cask strength....having not been cut. Not that this whisky being cask strength totally matters, because a good whisky is a good whisky, regardless of formality...but I'm just curious). For DL to bottle this whisky at their "preferred strength" of 50% right from the cask sounds rare. I've always heard of cask strength whisky typically being upper 50's to 60's % ABV. Maybe they are saying that their taster tried it from the cask, and it really was 50% ABV in the cask, and it was perfect for bottling as is, so, as a result, 50% is now their preferred strength for this particular whisky (and thus is it truly "cask strength")? The language "one of 294 bottles filled from cask" doesn't say that it was filled DIRECTLY from the cask...which makes me wonder if maybe this was not filled directly from the cask, nor was it filled at the same strength (uncut). I get the impression that it is truly uncut and at cask strength, but the slight ambiguities on the label make me wonder. BUT...I don't know the size of the cask, and 294 bottles sounds like a small number of bottles to be obtained from a single cask...making me wonder if this could account for the lower ABV% than I would have expected for a (suspected) "cask strength" whisky. (more whisky/alcohol has evaporated, allowing fewer bottles from that single cask, all at a lower ABV%).
Do any of you have any ideas about this?
Thanks, Sean