Laphroaig 10yo Mario Rossi import vs Laphroaig 10yo Filippi Fausto import
2 old Laproaig 10 year old Italian imports, what’s with all these names? They were the importer companies in their respective periods, which may in fact overlap!
Laphroaig 10yo Mario Rossi import 43% ~late 70s
Nose: Time has taken its toll. You can feel the glass in this one, and also a lot of musty old toolshed scents. Rusty metal and oil cans. Nonetheless it remains deeply phenolic with tar, cold ash, old wax and bung cloth. Quite a tired nose I feel, and maybe not the best put together. Earthy, inky, and maritime with dirty seawater and sea mud.
Palate: Feels much livelier here. The old phenolic notes of dusty wax, oil cans and rusty tools are present. Also big phenols with earth, soot and tar. But everything is positively overrun by a gushing salty maritime quality. Dirty nets drying, drenched fisherman’s overalls, big big salty and preserved lemony notes. ‘Kippery’ if what they mean is raw shellfish with a tablespoon of brine and dressed with salt.
Finish: Medium long, really *really* salty and sooty.
Laphroaig 10yo Filippi Fausto import 43% ~ late 60s
Nose: Ok the profile is amazing. Whiffs of tropical-ness and a real sense of fruitiness. Not tired at all – so fresh and expressive. Profoundly phenolic in a that cannot be described, save that its subtlety is the anti thesis of the massiveness of today’s Laphroaig. I won’t say it is overtly fruity but there’s a swelling sense of ripeness here. Maritime, sooty-earthy, flinty. It all comes together in a perfect way that just doesn’t bear describing.
Palate: All there and still fresh. Strikingly expressive with these deep phenolics of earth and camphor, old leather and tobacco leaf. Also burnt herbals, ground limestone and plenty of salt and preserved lemon again. Not much fruit at all here, instead more bitter bark-y and wintergreen. Stunning integration though. Becoming saltier.
Finish: Medium long. Salty again though not the salt slab that is the Mario Rossi. Dried herbals, sand and old metal. Fantastic profile.
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