By BillieBLVD
There are many different offerings from Islay that are worthy of any whisky aficionado's admiration but few are so steeped in tradition and myth as one of Islay's best distilleries, Lagavulin. Lagavulin goes too far back to mention but not so far that we cannot praise its 200th birthday. I have always felt that Lagavulin's niche was elegance and balance when compared to its peers but I cannot wait to try these drams to contrast with other Islay greats. Read more below.......
Authored by Nick Passmore
“An exceptionally fine whisky.”
That’s not my observation, nor the invention of the Marketing Department at Diageo , Lagavulin’s owner, but the judgement of the first ever whisky journalist, Alfred Bernard, on Lagavulin’s 8-year-old single malt when he visited Islay in 1887.
Nobody’s quite sure when production started at Lagavulin but it was certainly going on by 1816 so when the marketing people at Diageo, ever on the lookout for a promotional opportunity, decided to release a 200th-anniversary limited edition, they decided to resurrect the Bernard story and make the whisky an eight-year-old. And, not to miss out on the highly lucrative bling! end of the market, added a 25-year-old.
Pricing: 8-year-old is $65 and the 25 $1,200.
Not as medicinal as its neighbor Laphroaig, nor as hugely peated as its other neighbor, Ardbeg, the regular release 16-year-old is quintessential Lagavulin sweetness followed by a long-lived bonfire smokiness on the finish. However, these two special releases are very different.
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