I had a dram of this in a bar a couple of weeks ago, they didn’t have much on the shelves but they did have this and it’s an old favourite of mine, and going through the site yesterday I realised I hadn’t looked at this, so we better get too it, yeah?
It’s bottled at 43% and I’ve opened a 20cl bottle I had at the back of the cupboard and taken some notes from a few evenings with it.
This is one of the prestige distilleries owned by Diageo and the 16 Year Old is the standard bottling.
I took this with a teaspoon of water.
Nose. Iodine, Lapsang Souchong, lots of smoke here and it needs the water and some time to settle down a bit, in time sweet sherry notes and vanilla, cinnamon, sultanas, oranges and a touch of warm custard.
Palate. Lots of peat smoke and charred and sherried oak, its overwhelming if you’re not used to it, settles, a bit, to reveal salted chocolate, dark chocolate orange, pineapple sweets, tropical fruit juice.
Finish. Peat smoke and a touch of sweetness lasts for a good while.
A classic whisky and one which hasn’t really changed over the years, at least not to me, it has some wonderful “Lagavulin” characteristics which take me back to when I started drinking whisky properly.
Shop around for this too, I’ve seen this as low as forty pounds at certain times of the year.
The Captain.
