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.
I thought I wouldn't like the peated stuff after being put off a bit by Ardbeg's intensity but a glass of this a few days ago changed my mind completely. The peat was like a scaffold for the other flavors to dance around on. Great balance and loooong finish. Sweeter than I thought it would be, and smoky and coastal in the best ways possible. It stayed on my palate all night, a treat that was well worth the high price.
As the title says...great raisin and fruit mixed with slight salty/medicinal but thick rolling smoke. Recent bottling I tried is not as oily or viscous as previous ones - something that Jim Murray also notes in his Whisky Bible 2014. Why I wonder? What a useless review below dated 9 June 2014. Really worth reading.....not.
Yeah.. it's ok, I wouldn't punch the person who gifts this bottle to me, I just would not pay the price myself. As with most whiskys, burns your mouth and numbs your palate. Drink enough of it and it doesn't matter.
My son bought me a bottle for my birthday.i was always a Highland Park man but this stuff is incredible.Sweet smokey very complex.i agree with others that a touch of water opens it up.Wonderful!!
I'm a big fan of Islay whisky's. Although i like this Lagavulin i found the nose to be not too complex and doesn't last very long on the tongue. It can be quite harsh to the uninitiated but i find a teaspoon of chilled Scottish spring water brings out the flavours better. It's not as smooth as say Cao Ila which i find more to my liking. Nonetheless it makes for a nice dram and refines my palette further. If you like smokey, heather, vanilla, nuts (but not sweet) then I would recommend Bunnahabhain 12 yo(Reserve). There was also a special edition reserve for Duty Free (airports) which i bought that was very nice too. This one I would also add a teaspoon of spring water to bring the flavours/nose out.
