This is the last in my long, drawn-out vertical of Lagavulin 12 releases from 2009 to 2012. At the tasting with friends back in September when we actually drank all four head-to-head-to-head-to-head the group was unanimous that this was the one that was a bit of an outlier as the peat seemed a little “dirtier” or farmier. Let’s see if that holds up two months later or if that note seems less pronounced when the whisky is tasted by its lonesome.

Lagavulin 12 CS, 2012 (56.1%; from my own bottle)

Nose: Nope, this is still farmy. Iodine, kelp and lots of lemon. And lots of briny green notes too: olive brine, rotting kelp. Gets rather salty very quickly. A touch of creamy vanilla too with time but you have to work to find it. With a lot more time the farmy note dissipates somewhat and now there’s a distinct cereally character, with the lemon-olive thing right below it. With a few drops of water the creamy vanilla expands and there’s a bit of a smoky lemon curd thing going on. Continue reading →

Part three of my Lagavulin 12 CS series brings me to the 2011 release (see here for the 2009 and here for the 2010).

Lagavulin 12 CS, 2011 Release (57.5%; from my own bottle)

Nose: Very close to the 2010, with lemon, cereally peat and whiffs of gasoline leading the way. Deep inky sweetness below that–iodine and mercurochrome and gauze bandages. Some fruit too–grapefruit? melon?–and sharp, acidic smoke. With more time there’s a leafy, humusy quality and some green olive brine too. The lemon turns to lemon peel and gets more intense; some almond oil too. The cereal never goes away though. Water pushes the lemon back and there’s more of a straight ahead medicinal peat blast now.

Palate: Acrid smoke and lemon do battle, and battle to a draw. Salt after that and then more lemon and then the inky sweetness. More aggressive than the 2010 at full strength. With time the smoke is not as aggressive on initial entry and the (bitter) lemon becomes the top note and the medicinal notes (bandages, iodine) arrive much earlier. Much more phenolic now. Water makes the palate brighter and a bit sweeter–still very phenolic though and the smoke expands again. Continue reading →

This is the second entry in my ongoing, slow-motion Lagavulin 12 vertical. The first is here. Let’s get right to it.

Lagavulin 12 CS, 2010 Release (56.5%; from my own bottle)

Nose: Cereally, lemony peat. But beneath the soft cereal note there lurks a pungent, iodiney (iodinesque? iodinysian?) beast that is waiting to punch you in the nose if you get said organ too close to it. And this beast has been chomping on some rotting kelp. After a few more minutes though the beast calms down (I really regret starting on this metaphor, can we agree to abruptly let it go now?) and there’s a very nice deep, organic sweetness that emerges (“organic” as in sweet, rotting organic material) but it’s accompanied by salt crystals. With more time, the lemon, the organic sweetness and the salt are in perfect balance and there’s also strong whiffs of gasoline. It gets sharper with time and there’s more aromas of bandages etc. in an old-timey doctor’s office. I realize I haven’t actually mentioned smoke, but there you are. Gets sweeter again much later and there’s some vanilla fighting its way out too now. With water the lemon intensifies and turns to citronella. Continue reading →

If I ever have grandchildren the day will come when I will dandle them on my knee and tell them of a time when Astor Wines in NYC was selling this whisky for $49.99. Grandpa’s senile, they’ll say, and then run away shrieking as I try to bayonet them with Bessie, my trusted Civil War musket. I’m sorry, where was I? Right, the Lagavulin 12. This is the 2009 edition of the annual release of 12 yo cask strength Lagavulin (the first release was in 2002 as per Malt Madness). Unlike the more easily found 16 yo the 12 yo, I believe, is from all ex-American oak casks—then again, I don’t know why I believe this as I suddenly cannot find any definitive reference to this online. Less controversial, of course, is that it is always at a much higher strength than the regular 16 yo and the double matured Distiller’s Edition, which are both at 43%. Continue reading →

Today I review a whisky I never thought I would get a chance to taste: the already legendary first release of the Lagavulin 21. And if that weren’t enough I chase it with a briefer review (and smaller sample) of the second release of the Lagavulin 21. The first bottle is long gone from general circulation. I think it cost $300 on original release in the US. That was too rich for my blood at the time (though I didn’t even know about it then); still is, but not unthinkable for a special bottle. Now, of course, it’s going for 3-4x that price if you can find it. Why all the fuss? Well, partly because there are so few official Lagavulin releases (and even fewer named indies) and partly because there are very, very few that are solely matured in European oak ex-sherry casks; but mostly because it was acclaimed upon release as one of the great malts of the contemporary era, garnering scores from the likes of Serge Valentin that are normally reserved for Bowmores and Springbanks from the 1960s and Broras from the early 1970s. Continue reading →

Diageo now release Distillers Editions of whiskies from a number of their distilleries (the series began with the six distilleries originally designated as their “Classic Malts”). These involve a secondary (and relatively brief) maturation of the entry-level malt from each distillery in a sherry/wine cask of some kind. I have not tried them all–far from it–but am not a fan of most that I have tried. In particular, the Distillers Editions of Talisker, Clynelish and Caol Ila (some of my favourite distilleries) seem to me to blunt their essential characteristics and the “finish” does not seem to me to always be as harmoniously integrated as it could be with the underlying malt. The only one that I like a lot, and have bought more than one iteration of, is the Lagavulin Distillers Edition, which is finished in casks that previously housed sticky Pedro Ximinez sherry. It’s fairly pricey in the US and so it’s not one that I drink down very fast or replace immediately when done. But as I have a new bottle freshly arrived, I am raiding my large reference sample from my previous bottle of the 1993-2009 edition. Continue reading →