Lagavulin 16 Year Old is truly a benchmark Islay whisky. It’s loved for its deep, earthy, and maritime character with rich notes of dried fruit, vanilla, and smokiness that comes from Islay peat but is more akin to Lapsang Souchong tea in profile.
Before Lagavulin 16, the distillery did have a 12-year-old single malt. But when Diageo launched the Classic Malt series in the 1980s, Lagavulin 16 Year Old was introduced and became the distillery's flagship bottling. It received a boost in popularity after featuring in Parks and Recreation as a favourite drink of Nick Offerman’s character Ron Swanson. Offerman has since collaborated with the distillery on several occasions.
If you're looking for a food pairing for this beauty, try intensely flavoured salty blue cheeses, which complement the intense, peat-rich, sweet and salty character of this Lagavulin wonderfully.
More like Lapsang Souchong tea than Lapsang Souchong! One of the smokiest noses from Islay. It's big, very, very concentrated, and redolent of iodine, sweet spices, good, mature Sherry and creamy vanilla. Stunning.
Very thick and rich. A massive mouthful of malt and Sherry with good fruity sweetness, but also a wonderful sweetness. Big, powerful peat and oak.
Long, spicy finish, figs, dates, peat smoke, vanilla.
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My favourite malt by a long, long way. Peat and smoke (obviously) on the nose, and well as leather (I finally understand what Paul Weller meant when he sang ‘the smell of brown leather, it bended into the weather’. Malt and citrus notes, as well as a rich caramel excite the taste buds And leaves a long, slow, delightful aftertaste.
It's good, but is it really that much better than Laphroaig?
A good drink, but not what it was. less peaty, less smoky, less phenolic, altogether a lighter dram than a few years ago. I'd still buy it again though!
Firstly, I don't like scotch. I am a bourbon drinker. As such I love a bit of peat, even a lot of peat. Lagavulin gives me peat aplenty. As well as peat I can enjoy the alcohol which also abounds. There are so many more flavours in this beautifully made whiskey it is almost worth the price. The Irish have known the secret of peat long before they shared it with the New World. It seems they also shared it with Islay. This is a whiskey which should never touch water or ice. Love it.
Just found a bottle I bought over 20 years ago and realise why I left it: It is very pleasant initially with a complex gentle peaty tartness but the peat flavour, albeit mild, lingers long after everything else has gone.
