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.
Tastes simply like TCP.
Tried a sample of this at the glenkinchie distillery and bought myself a bottle. More balanced than many Islay drams with the peat smoke feeling more like a part of the flavour than hitting you in the face.
My favourite of all whiskies. Then Talisker, then Laphroaig!
I had this while in a nice restaurant with a dozen friends. The nose is incredible and powerful, people could smell it way down the table. Each sip almost feels like liquid velvet!
Out of Bruinladdich, laphroiag ,laph Qcask jura, talisker, lediag, highland Park and few more its prob my all time favourite smooth peaty smokey. Currently testing Jura 16year old, really nice but not as good as Lagavulin.
