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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Bit pricey, but one dram can fill easy 40 minutes of sniffing and sipping
No doubt this is a classic islay and there's nothing i can add to other reviews regarding it's nose etc, but what irks me is the fact prices have risen steeply, then knocked down to a 'sale' price above what it was before as a marketing ploy, and the reason the next bottle of Islay i buy wont be Lagavulin
very complex and just hard to beat!
I just started drinking whisk(e)y. I tried Jim Beam all I tasted. Was a strong condensed oak wood flavor. I had to pour it out. I could not get past the eighth glass. Jameson is mostly all peppery. Monkey sholder is a good whisk(e)y. LAGAVULIN 16 is a very different whisk(e)y. But definitely not a bad whisk(e)y. I just need more time to get to know it. And that I am definitely enjoying.
Lagavulin 16 is one of the few single malts I've tasted, and it's certainly a great one. The thing about lagavulin is the deep smoke and thickness of the liquid, it's very enjoyable and most of all I noticed deep comfortable smoke, thickness and malt. 4.5 stars for this one, no doubt.
