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.
The only whisky I love, after an amazing initial introduction to lots of different whiskies in a pub in Inverliever 20+ years ago!
From the moment I tried it I knew this was the one. No need for over analysis. I enjoy every sip and Diageo and e150 are the furthest thing from my mind. Absolutely wonderful. If I could only drink one dram from now on this would be it.
I feel the rating on this is from Diageo’s marketing and from inexperienced consumers. This is not an example of what a good Islay scotch has to offer. Overpriced, watered down, chill filtered, loads of e150 added, not very complex especially for a 16 year old. This has great potential but it’s not even close to where it should be. Fix the things listed above and put some quality and care into the spirit itself and it would be one of the best instead of trying to use marketing gimmicks to appeal and fool inexperienced drinkers. Diageo is much more worried about its profits than making a good product just like so many companies now a days and people aren’t educated enough to see it I guess.
A quiet crisp cool evening alone. Sitting on an old comfortable camping chair deep in the woods with a warm comfortable fire at hand. The smell of sweet smoke wafting near by ... So looking forward to the next.
If you like Islay-type whiskeys, you will LOVE this scotch. It remains the standard to which other Islay whiskies are judged. Just buy it. You will not be disappointed.
