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.