Scotland Road Trip 2018 - Day Three (Lagavulin, Laphroaig)
You know what they say about not peaking too early? I guess we threw that out the window in Scotland because, on the third day of our trip, we reached our two favorite distilleries: Lagavulin (wife's No. 1) and Laphroaig (mine). It was every bit as exhilarating as one would suspect.
Lagavulin Distillery - Feis Ile Open Day
For Feis Ile week, each of the eight Islay distilleries has its own day, called its Open Day, to welcome its most devoted fans, offer special tastings or classes not ordinarily available to visitors, and to release its exclusive festival bottle. Saturday was Lagavulin's Open Day, and it did not disappoint.
Our drive there was, again, somewhat harrowing. The road from Bowmore to Port Ellen is primarily a one-lane, two-way street. A what, you say? That's a concept unknown to Americans, but it's the format for roughly half or more of the roads on Islay. A one-lane, two-way street means that if you see a car coming toward you, there are small "passing" areas where one of you should pull over and allow the other one to pass you by before you continue going on your way. Picture a snake with a few bulges in its belly -- that's what the road looks like. The vast majority of the time you're on it, thankfully, there isn't another soul around, which is why this system can function, I suppose. However, every few minutes, another car will approach from the distance, and it becomes a question of who will reach a passing place first and who will pull over and allow the other party to get by. Mercifully, drivers in Scotland and Islay in particular are extremely polite, so we never encountered any unnecessarily aggressive driving.
The scene that greeted us when we arrived at Lagavulin made it worth the while and then some. Even an hour or so before the official start of the Open Day, there was already live music in the form of a bagpiper (we heard plenty of those in Scotland, and they were wonderful) and then later a small local folk band. There was a substantial line of people forming up to be the first to buy Lagavulin's exclusive Feis Ile bottle, which I'll be reviewing later in this post. It was an 18-year old exclusive released just at the distillery during this week, so I too was excited to grab it (although, as it turned out later, with 6,000 bottles available, there were plenty in the gift shop later in the week when we returned, and no need to wait in a line at all).
Distilleries took their Open Days seriously, and for the most part treated it as a thank you and a special opportunity for the fans rather than a lucrative money-making enterprise (something that they certainly could do, with the boom in whisky's popularity). It was amazing how much free stuff there was for people who just showed up, without paying even for an entrance ticket. Lagavulin gave out free t-shirts at the start and then poured free drams of Lagavulin 8, Lagavulin 16, and Lagavulin Distillers Edition all day, along with a separate complimentary bar featuring whisky cocktails such as the "Smoky Coke-y" (Lagavulin 16 and Coca Cola). I am not joking, it was all day. If you just wanted to grab a drink, get to the back of the line and wait for another, and repeat, you could have done it from the hours of 11 am to 5 pm or so without interruption. Considering a pour of Lagavulin 16 is $18 and up at bars in most major cities nowadays, getting that and the more expensive Distillers Edition gratis was a major goodwill gesture to those who'd spent the time and effort to make the long journey to remote Islay.
In addition to the live music and free drinks, the distilleries also have paid events, and various vendors sell food and snacks throughout the day. We even got to try Lagavulin Distillers Edition-flavored soft serve, which is as spectacular as its name suggests.
Lagavulin Manager's Masterclass
The first major event we attended was a tasting class hosted by both the departing and incoming distillery managers at Lagavulin, Georgie Crawford and Colin Gordon. Georgie is leaving to head one of Diageo's high-budget, next-generation whisky projects: the revival of Port Ellen distillery, so this was her final Feis Ile week at the helm of Lagavulin.
At 45£, it was not a cheap event by any means, but we were lured by the promise of tasting Lagavulin 25, a $1,200 (799£) bottle that's the flagship of the Lagavulin brand. The masterclass was held in one of the old dunnage warehouses, right in the heart of the distillery's campus, and no longer used to age whisky. When we sat down, we were faced with a place setting with five whiskies and several food accompaniments.
Yeney initially sat down to my left, but I suggested that she move to the right, where I saw an open place whose glasses seemed to have more generous pours. In particular, the final glass (roughly at the 8 o'clock position in my photograph) was almost double the volume at her new seat. It turned out to be a great idea because that was our pour of Lagavulin 25! Here's what we thought of the tasting, starting at the top-left (11 o'clock dram).
Lagavulin 12 Cask Strength 2017 ed. (56.5% ABV) - We've tried and loved older editions of Lagavulin 12. This dram, on this day, remained very good but did not quite reach the height of its more distinguished siblings. Unlike most Lagavulins, this one has no sherry cask influence at all, and that's evident in its dry, relatively fruit-less nose of brine, vanilla frosting, dry sand, tea, and fresh grains. I first noted in my review of Lagavulin 12 that Lagavulin's base spirit has a signature scent and flavor that resembles burnt rice, and I noticed it again in this year's edition. Compared to the dry, coastal nose, the palate and finish are substantially sweeter and emphasize those ex-bourbon flavors of toffee and vanilla, with the finish exhibiting the most smoke and herbal peat. B+
Lagavulin Distillery Exclusive (53.7%) - This is the 85£ bottle sold at the distillery alone. Unlike the Lagavulins of the core lineup, this one does not feature an age statement. However, it does not suffer for that absence. To the extent that it's younger, and I suspect it is, this bottle highlights the positives of youth in its vibrant, energetic flavors. This was a sweet-and-spicy combination, with scents of oak, vanilla, and caramel and a particularly creamy texture in the mouth. Those sweet flavors are the first to hit the tongue, but it grows more piquant over time and even spicy, with chili emerging. The finish emphasizes spiciness with chili and black pepper, with relatively little smoke. The distillery pairing for this dram was a cheese and soda bread hors d'oeuvre. A-
Lagavulin Jazz Festival 2017 (57.6%) - With this special edition bottling, for the Jazz Festival held in September on Islay, we're back to a coastal, dry profile. The nose is so dry it reminds me of chalk dust or seashells, with a distinct brininess to it. Again, however, the palate transitions to a much sweeter set of flavors, with melon and grapefruit coming to the fore. The finish is warming, filled with toffee, and is the least smoky of the expressions on offer. Jazz Festival is another delightful 89£ offering available at the distillery only. We paired this one with a fig canape. A-
Lagavulin Feis Ile 2018 (53.9%) - At a whopping 129£, Lagavulin's special release for Feis Ile costs a pretty penny. And yet we still bought two. This Feis Ile expression is a more complex, older, and less sweet version of the 12-year old cask strength bottle. The nose is also dry, briny, and even a bit grassy, with hints of pear or other white fruit. My wife compared it to Le Labo perfume, and the sandalwood and aromatic vetiver of Santal 33 might be a fair analog for the grassiness here. The palate has an oily rather than creamy texture and has the richness of dark, dried fruit, caramel, and well-aged malt. This whisky had the best finish of the tasting to me, a rising tide of smoke and peat, producing a classic coffee and hot chocolate note that is a hallmark of well-aged peated scotches. A-
Lagavulin 25 (51.7%) - We saved the best for last, no? This one was paired with a brownie, but we hardly needed that rich, sweet, chocolate treat. This is a dark scotch, similar in color to the Distillers Edition despite the lack of added color. Chocolate, caramel, and oil on the nose are a fitting preview for a rich, fruit-filled palate. There’s an eerie lack of heat. This much time in the cask adds wave after wave of luscious, viscous caramel to the palate. Like most of its close cousins on Islay, more time in the cask mellows out the peaty rough edges of the distillate and sweetens it over time. There is some spice or even bitterness from the oak, which is what melds with the sweetness to create flavors reminiscent of chocolate. The finish is delicious, mellowed peat and barbecue smoke. This might be the best scotch I've ever had, irrespective of price. Considering it's unaffordable to most people (including myself) at 799£, I'll knock it down one peg. A
Laphroaig Distillery
After our masterclass and a quick burger for lunch courtesy of Islay's A.S. Porter Family Butchers, we walked the mile or so west to Laphroaig. This had the combined benefit of sobering us up from the five drams of Lagavulin, and giving us a taste of the beautiful sights of Islay's seashore, meadows, and forests (yes, you can see all of these things on a single mile-long walk!).
At Laphroaig, unlike at most distilleries we visited, we took the full tour. For those visiting Islay, I'd recommend doing the tour at Laphroaig (Kilchoman or Bowmore would be viable alternatives), especially a weekend tour like the one we took. Unlike almost all distilleries left in Scotland, Laphroaig continues to floor-malt their own barley, which satisfies about 10% of their demand for malt. Other than seven distilleries in Scotland that still floor malt,* the vast majority of distilleries buy malt from larger, industrialized operations (for instance, Port Ellen Maltings provides the malt for Caol Ila, Lagavulin, etc., and the other 90% of the malt that goes into Laphroaig). Thus, this is a step of the whisky-making process that one can only see at a handful of places.
Glorious malt, can't wait to taste it in 10 years or so!
The reason it's worth going on the weekend is that the tour goes into the peat-fired drying room that is the true "secret sauce" that gives Laphroaig its distinct Laphroaig-iness (smoke, seaweed, iodine, vegetal funk). The drying room operates all day long on the weekdays, so one doesn't have the opportunity. Our tour group actually walked inside the space, and the scent of that gorgeous, ashy peat is almost overwhelming.
The tower and fan that carry away the peated smoke -- these are the iconic steepled roof towers that one sees at almost all distilleries, although most no longer use them because they don't need to prepare their own malt
That brown clumpy dirt is the secret sauce. If only one could bottle it . . . oh, wait . . .
Printed volumes that contain all the names of the 700,000+ Friends of Laphroaig
Laphroaig's resident seaside swan, Gary, slurping down seaweed on the coast of the Atlantic
The basic tour, which costs just 10£ and includes a few drams at the end, is a great way to spend an hour. It doesn't hurt that Laphroaig, like Lagavulin and Ardbeg, is right on the coast of the ocean and has breathtaking views as far as the eye can see. On a clear day, like the one we had the fortune to visit, we could see all the way across the sea to the coast of northern Ireland.
In addition, another great bonus is that most of the distilleries also give you a free glencairn tasting glass as part of their tours or classes. Lagavulin gave full-size glencairns as part of both the masterclass and the warehouse experience, which we did a few days later, so we ended up with four glasses with the distillery crest. Laphroaig, on the other hand, gave out little mini-glasses.
Aside from the drams we picked up at the end of our tour, Laphroaig's main tasting bar (pictured above) also was pouring a greater variety of their expressions, including some rare older releases. Best of all, for Feis Ile week, the bar offered free drams of their special edition Cairdeas release! This year's Cairdeas release (Gaelic for "friendship"), released in celebration of Feis Ile, is a fino sherry-finished whisky. I'll review that one later in a separate article, but the bar also was pouring Laphroaig Select and Laphroaig 10 Cask Strength Batch 010 for free, the latter of which had been released that very day. Final travel tip: for drivers, if you ask for a driver's dram, the distillery gives you a little glass bottle with your dram so that you can take it home and enjoy it safely!
To be clear, these tasting notes mostly come from imbibing that occurred after we returned safely to our B&B for the night :)
Laphroaig 10 Cask Strength, Batch 010 (58%) - I loved me some earlier releases of this line, and reviewed Batch 007 (the James Bond batch) here. Most of the notes are going to carry over from release to release, although this one distinguished itself in my mind primarily through its more intense sweetness on the nose, almost reminiscent of cookie dough. Actually, a common theme to the more recently released Laphroaigs that I tasted on this trip was a strong, cookie or chocolate-like sweetness. After that, it's exactly what one would expect from Laphroaig: intense, medicinal cherry, seaweed and seasalt, and ashy smoke. This is a hot dram, although not relative to its ABV. A
Laphroaig 15 Cairdeas (43%) - I still have to get around to reviewing the 2015 release of Laphroaig's 15-year old single malt, which was the first whisky that really blew my mind with the nuance of its flavor profile and made me think that it was worth exploring this hobby further. This release distinguishes itself by using only Laphroaig's own floor-malted barley. As noted above, Laphroaig only produces 10 percent of the barley that it uses, because its demand and volume is simply too high to satisfy in-house. Certain releases, however, like Laphroaig's 200th anniversary Cairdeas expression, contain only malt from the distillery itself. That suggests this should be peatier, as Laphroaig peats its own malt to 50-55 ppm compared to the 45 ppm malt they get from Port Ellen (#tourfacts). On the nose, this whisky is medicinal, sweet, and herbal, with faint smoke and some inklings of then tart fruit that characterize mature Laphroaigs. The palate is well-balanced but a little muted: medicinal, tart fruit, chocolate-covered pretzels (salty!). A tad hotter than I expected. That tart or sour fruit flavor continues through a finish long as a May day on Islay (sunset here is 9:45 or so). Peat smoke and tar, of course. Good but (perhaps unfairly) fading a bit compared to other drams from this week. B+
Final glamour shot of our Lagavulin Feis Ile 2018 bottle!
*Laphroaig, Bowmore, Kilchoman, Highland Park, Springbank, Balvenie, Benriach are the seven.