Whisky Focus - The Latest Douglas Laing XOP Bottling

Announcing 7 new Douglas Laing XOP bottlings including the firm's oldest ever Port Ellen Distillery release bottled at 36 Years Old.

Just a quick announcement for those of you looking for something a little extra special that is off the beaten track of the original distillery bottlings. Glasgow independent bottler Douglas Laing & Co. has announced the release of seven particularly special Single Cask Whiskies, including the firm’s oldest ever Port Ellen Distillery release bottled at 36 Years Old and at a very respectable strength of 56.6% ABV. All seven of the new whiskies have been bottled under Douglas Laing's "XOP" label, meaning Xtra Old Particular, which is a range of older and rarer aged Single Cask Scotch Whisky.

Fred Laing commented on the new releases saying, "Each month, we hand select casks from our vaults when we believe they have reached their peak of perfection, and bottle them under our Provenance, Old Particular and XOP brands. It’d be fair to say that Single Casks are our bread and butter, but we never let ourselves forget just how special it is to bottle these Whiskies exactly as the distiller intended – straight from the cask, without chill-filtering or adding colouring, and at natural cask strength. We don’t often shout about these releases, but with a leathery Port Ellen aged for 36 glorious years, a wonderfully treacle-y Strathmill 32 Years Old and a duo of particularly sweetly vanilla'd old and rare Grain Whiskies among our latest collection, we felt it’d be rude not to share".

The seven latest releases in the Douglas Laing XOP range are as follows:

• From Islay
  Port Ellen 36 Years Old, 56.6% ABV, £1,175.68
  Bruichladdich 26 Years Old, 52.1% ABV, £175.91
   
• From Speyside
  Auchroisk 25 Years Old, 55.4% ABV, £115.86
  Strathmill 32 Years Old, 51% ABV
   
• From The Highlands
  Highland Park 21 Years Old 52.6% ABV, £162.14
   
• Grain Whiskies
  Girvan 50 Years Old, 43.7% ABV, £347.17
  Port Dundas 37 Years Old, 60.2% ABV, £209.66

The pricing is from Douglas Laing's new shiny web site where it appears every penny counts, i.e. the Port Ellen 36 Years Old is £1,175.68, you would have thought they could have waived the 0.68p. Seriously though DL's Port Ellen 36 year old checks out at less than HALF the price of Diageo's £2,400 Port Ellen 1983 32 Year Old Special Releases 2015 and Diageo's offering is a vatting of multiple casks. Although both are now out of my everyday drinking price range I have had the pleasure of a few Douglas Laing Port Ellen bottlings in the past and they have been consistently outstanding and i would be confident this latest offering from DL will be also.

The XOP range launched in late 2014 as an extension of the family company's popular Old Particular range, it is now home to the oldest, finest and rarest Whiskies from the Laing family stocks. Each cask chosen to be bottled under the XOP label is meticulously hand-selected by Managing Director Fred Laing (a tough job but someone's got to do it), Fred accepts nothing less than perfection for the brand he calls the "Douglas Laing Family Jewels".

Look out for Douglas Laing’s latest XOP Xtra Old Particular Single Cask bottlings, they will be available from specialist Whisky retailers such as The Whisky Exchange from this month and I suspect with Christmas fast approaching they may sell quickly with many whisky drinkers looking for a special dram over the coming holiday season.
 

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