The Wall Collection is a series of highly-aged Laphroaig whiskies, each cask finished to explore a different flavour profile. Each edition will feature an illustration by illustrator and ceramicist Laura Carlin, hand-painted onto each bottle. The 'Peat' Edition is the first release - a 36-year-old Laphroaig with a heavily peated cask finish. There are only 200 bottles per edition.
Laphroaig has a core profile that is unique, and permanent. Laura Carlin has represented this by creating an unchanging base layer on each bottle, using the same textured masonry paint that is used on the warehouse walls. Laphroaig is very location specific; it can only be made in one place. Attempts have been made to replicate it, even very nearby, didn’t work. The wall texture represents the distillery and the warehouse; a geographic permanence that is the underlying core of Laphroaig, that cannot be replicated or changed.
Cask finishing adds further layers of flavour to the core Laphroaig profile. This is the changing element, represented by the illustration painted onto each bottle. The illustration is the expression of that particular bottling, because although each cask of Laphroaig is unmistakably Laphroaig, the cask finishing adds another layer.
Peat is a defining characteristic of Laphroaig. However, as the whisky matures the levels of peat diminish and other, more tropical fruit flavours emerge. For the first edition in the series, the ‘Peat' edition reintroduces more peat character at this later stage with a heavily peat cask finish. Laura Carlin has represented this edition's cask finish by hand painting peat bricks in the traditional formation they are left in on the peat banks once dug from the ground.