Laphroaig Collaborates with World-Famous Actor Willem Dafoe

Tuesday, 23 September 2025 at 10:00

Glenmorangie, eat your heart out, because the next monumental collaboration has been unveiled. Laphroaig and Willem Dafoe have joined forces. A campaign has been launched with the duo working together on a new whiskey.

FAQ

Who is Willem Dafoe?
He's a Hollywood actor known for his roles in films such as Spider-Man, Platoon, Nosferatu, and The Lighthouse.
What are Laphroaig and Willem Dafoe doing?
They are promoting the Islay whiskey.
Will there be a special Laphroaig Willem Dafoe whiskey?
There's a whiskey on the way, but whether it will bear Dafoe's name is yet to be confirmed.

Laphroaig, the famous brand from Islay, was hunting for someone to collaborate with for the Unphorgettable campaign. In light of the bold campaign that Willem Dafoe has built over the years, he was the chosen one.

Dafoe first encountered Laphroaig whiskey back in 1976

The actor is delighted with the partnership because he has been drinking, and thus, well acquainted with Laphroaig for many years.

'When I was first in New York City, I had a friend whose whole identity was a self-proclaimed expert on whiskey. He turned me onto Laphroaig many years ago - that’s 1976 or so. So that's probably the start, and it meant something to me. I mean, I was familiar with Laphroaig when they approached me!'

The Taste by Tim Pope

The collaboration kicked off with a short film called The Taste, directed by Tim Pope, who has previously created music videos for the likes of The Cure and David Bowie. The campaign aims to pull out all the stops to make a lasting impression on people.

The video offers the first taste of Laphroaig's 10-year-old whiskey. Dafoe describes the whiskey as follows:

‘Like kissing a mermaid on a rocky rowboat in a tumultuous sea.’

He then recites descriptions of the whiskey penned by the Friends of Laphroaig.

Watch the unveiling below.

'I was the guinea pig'

The venture doesn't stop at an advertising stint, as there's a new whiskey hitting the market next year. For this, the actor teamed up with Sarah Dowling, the senior whiskey blender at Laphroaig.

'I was very taken with [her],' Dafoe says, 'and just loved how precise and how curious and how she dealt with the tasting. It was call and response - they gave me, I guess it’s basically a blind tasting. I’m not necessarily an expert. I tried to express what I was feeling and sensing. And they’d take it in. We’d go down the line, and then they started to notice a pattern. They designed something specifically, and I tasted it. I said, ‘Yeah, that's it.’ So I was in a laboratory, basically, [and] I was the guinea pig.'

Dafoe hasn't yet visited the distillery, but he plans on doing so.

A Cinema on Islay

Fun fact: In the 1950s, Islay had no cinema. Did you know that Bessie Williamson, the distillery manager of Laphroaig refashioned the malting floor to host film screenings after work? That's how the island population got introduced to Hollywood movies. Bessie was one of the first women to run a distillery.