Lagavulin 16 Year Old 0,7 l

Single Islay Malt Whisky, 43%vol

Complex. Dry and smoky with a big body. Sweetness at first turning to darker smoke (coal) at the close. Perhaps some saltiness too. A much sought-after single malt with the massive peat-smoke that's typical of southern Islay - but also offering a dryness that turns it into a truly interesting dram.

Coloured with caramel.
 

Producer:  Lagavulin Distillery, Port Ellen, Isle of Islay, Scotland

Islay came late to law and order. It was well into the 19th Century when arrangements to collect duty here finally fell into line with those applying elsewhere in Scotland and legal distilling became the norm. As early as 1742, there were perhaps ten illicit stills operating at Lagavulin. In 1816 local farmer and distiller John Johnston founded the first legal distillery, within view of Dunyvaig Castle, once the stronghold of the Lords of the Isles.

A year later Archibald Campbell founded a second, which seems later to have traded under the name Ardmore. After Johnston's death the two were united, when Glasgow-based Islay malt merchant Alexander Graham, to whom Johnston had been in debt, acquired Lagavulin for the princely sum of £1,103 9s 8d.
Graham improved the buildings and his successors, James Logan Mackie & Co., carried on the business successfully. Lagavulin went from strength to strength. Alfred Barnard, visiting in 1887, commented that "There are only a few of the Scotch distillers that turn out spirit for use as single malt whiskies, and that at Lagavulin can claim to be one of the most prominent."
Owner Peter Mackie became famous throughout the whisky world as the creator of the famous blend, White Horse. A man driven by the Victorian work ethic and so nicknamed by his staff "Restless Peter", he was continually planning fresh ventures, one of which the famous "traditional" Malt Mill distillery opened alongside Lagavulin in 1908 and closed in 1960.

Today's Lagavulin™, winner of Gold Medals at nine International Wine and Spirit Competitions and the 1993 Ian Mitchell Trophy as best 'Special Edition' Single Malt Scotch Whisky, is acclaimed by writer Jane MacQuitty as "gloriously rich, smoky, iodine-scented".
Lagavulin™ is a powerful yet wonderfully rounded pleasure. Its recently described "awesome power and marvellous complexity of flavours" are enjoyed by a small but growing band of malt lovers, for whom this big, dark, intense character just is malt.