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.
when your palate begins to develop you really will appreciate what a fantastic and legendry whisky this really is.
Expected nice smooth "oily" taste, instead horrible taste similar to Fernet? Strong herby taste.
was expecting a very good scotch due to almost all 5 star reviews here but the hard iodine taste overpowers everything else and makes it undrinkable for me :(
I'm usually not a big fan of Islay whisky but I'll make an exception for lagavulin. The nose alone is worth the price of the bottle, and the taste and finish have a "roundness" to them that I find hard to find in other Islay whiskies.
I have yet to find such an extinguish taste as I have found in the Lagavulin. It is available in every Vinmonopol (category 3 and upwards at least) in Norway.
