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 first came upon this whiskey when at the age of 18 I worked in my uncles off licence and wanted to buy my girlfriends father a nice drink. my uncle gave me a second bottle for an extra £20 so I got one for me too. (BTW this was the first whiskey I had ever bought - outside of tasting a House whiskey in a social club, which as you can imagine did not go down well). I had my first taste of it with her dad, (he was a big whiskey fan but had never tried it) It was heaven! Since then * I'm now 30, I have probably had maybe 100+ bottles of this 16 yr old and maybe 15 - 20 of the cask strength 12 yr old! I have just recieved Lagavulin 21 Year Old / 2012 Special Release as a christmas present from my Fiancee, which I am planning on cracking open this coming Friday! I have made it my business to try as many different whiskeys as I possibly could, and have been on 7 whiskey tasting holiday packages to broaden my knowledge a little bit, but I can hand on heart claim that the greatest I have ever tasted is this 16 yr old Lagga, a close second being its stronger 12 yr old brother! - I will let you guys know once I have tried my 21 yr old.
I'm fairly new into scotch, but still worst I've had. I couldn't believe, afterwards, they charged me $16 an ounce. Must have been a bad batch or something. No way it can taste that bad. I'm serious. I nosed it for probably 10 minutes in disbelief. I am going to by a bottle to give it a fair chance. For now, i am disappointed.
This is the worst scotch I've ever had. $16 for one ouce? That's pathetic. I've only tried it once, maybe it was a bad batch, but that was terrible. Seriously never drink this scotch. Tastes like crap and it'd kill myself before having having another sip.
An example of a Scotch that even experienced home distillers attempt to emulate. Admittedly, this Scotch is of primary appeal for 'Island Scotch' region lovers and/or those with dare-to-be-different tastes ... however, it is an enjoyably-complex, well fractioned and aged, top class Scotch...and the price is always amazing for such crafted single malt.
Not as peaty as Laphroiag but serious nonetheless. This is an awesome dram, not that easy to come by in the 'High Street' and very much the mature whisky lovers choice. Theres no point talking about noses, palates or anything else. Just buy a bottle and see for yourself. You will NOT be disappointed (disclaimer: if you are disappointed, stop drinking Scottish single malts and stick to cheap vodka).
