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.
One of Ron Swanson’s favorites!
Throw my 5 stars on to the pile, simply outstanding. The peat!
I was treated (oh yes, it was a treat) to this by my son. My first thought was, "wait, what is this...oh my God!" I'm a novice, only been drinking single malts a couple of years; I don't have the nose, knowledge of most of those on this site. All I know is that in all my 74 years I've never tasted any whiskey anywhere near this good. I've never had an emotional reaction to a whiskey before. Many thanks to my son, Shawn.
Spirit of Islay and Peated Whisky, perfect taste, smokey, sweet, peated, and strong, you should taste a new thing...where it simply described by Lagavulin 16YO... wonderful....
Simply the Rolls Royce of whisky. I love taking my customers on a whisky tour of my bar and finishing off with this, the most perfectly balanced of all whisky, you could say the more expensive the car the more the engine knows what it’s doing.. Lagavulin 16 as described by the bike enthusiast of Beinglas..
