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.
Whisky king. Best of the best. Islay goodness.
This stuff gives me immediate heartburn that gets worse with each sip. The smokiness is great, but the bottle I got is far from smooth. As this is my first experience with Lagavulin 16, it may need time to grow on me. For now it gets 2 stars because i didn't have to pay $100 for this bottle.
A good friend gave me this bottle, having decided it wasn't to his taste. I'm so glad he did that. Pungent, and powerful to both the nose and the tongue. Smoke, GLORIOUS smoke. I understand we all have differing tastes, but this was the most amazing taste of whisky I've ever had. My go-to dram has always been the simple, yet delicious, Glenlivet 15 French Oak. I didn't realize what I was missing in the Islay malts. Well, I'm catching on, and now have a new hobby sampling these lovely, flavorful whiskies. THANK YOU TINY ISLAND!!!
Not kidding, tastes great when it's freshly popped open, and for a day or two after..... but then it all goes wrong and not only does the sherry finishing seem to disappear but also the minerally peat edge..... Something is terribly wrong with Laga 16..... can any whisky explain this? That's the last bottle of this formerly great whisky I will ever buy..... So unless you're gonna polish off the bottle in one night with your mates, think again...
Needs to be in a locked safe with the combination only known by my wife so she can ration out to prevent me from draining the bottle at one sitting. Fantastic flavors and complexity with the Islay peat woven throughout.
