Scotch

Lagavulin 8 Year Old

OVERALL
RATING

Whisky Review: Lagavulin 8 Year Old

We review Lagavulin 8 Year Old, a special release commemorating the distillery's 200th birthday. It's an effing great dram.

Tasting Notes:

About:
Appearance:
Clear, very pale straw
Nose:
Tons of kippery peat mixed with a fresh grainy sweetness, like multigrain bread toasted over an industrial fire and slathered in clover honey. Notes of briny salt overlay a fundamental freshness, aromas of ripe pear and soft dried apricot. There’s also a bit of hay-like character, but very lively and fresh-cut. Peat skews towards the maritime, but the smoke is bold too.
Palate:
Unflinchingly smoky in a heavy, extinguished campfire kind of way. Lots of that kippered fish character sticks around from the nose, salty and iodine, without straying over into meatiness. Nice notes of pear candy and apple peel as well as a sweet, almost sticky malt character runs under the whole thing, tapering off to a long, dry, pleasantly ashy finish that hangs for a long time. So delightful that you’re loath to taste anything else. Conclusion This is whisky in HiDef – pure, clearly defined, unadorned, with a laser-like yet not overwhelming intensity. Despite its relatively high proof, it’s not particularly hot, and the balance between smoke and sweetness is hugely inviting. It’s like the essential core of what makes Lagavulin Lagavulin, stripped of any superfluous vanillins. Plus I appreciate how beautifully this bucks the twin contemporary Scotch trends of fantastically expensive luxury bottlings, and goofy NAS spirits. Effing great. I loved everything about this. FINAL SCORE: 95/100
Finish:
Comments:
Lagavulin 8-year-old
Lagavulin 8-year-old. Image copyright The Whiskey Wash.

Lagavulin is a class act. Founded in 1816, Islay’s most upscale single malt retains a kind of unimpeachable greatness even today, beloved by all, from the San Francisco World Spirits Competition to everybody’s favorite fictional boss, Ron Swanson.

That classiness just went up another notch. To celebrate their 200th anniversary, Lagavulin didn’t just release a super-premium, unobtainable, uber-expensive commemorative expression exclusively for deep-pocketed connoisseurs (although they did do that). They also released a younger, more affordable version of their famous 16-year-old: Lagavulin 8-year-old.

Why? It’s a tribute to Alfred Barnard, famous Victorian whisky enthusiast and author of The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom. During his research he visited every functioning distillery in the U.K., making him perhaps the world’s first whisky ticker. In the 1880s, he dropped in on Lagavulin, where he tasted an eight-year-old expression of the famous peated single malt that he called “exceptionally fine.”

Releasing such a young whisky under a luxury brand is a bold move, but maybe it shouldn’t be. Nick Moran, spokesman for Diageo, says “The obsession with age statements and older whiskies is really a product of the late 20th century…age has become a lazy way of defining quality and price. And that’s demonstrably not how it should be.”

In the NAS era, it’s a refreshing perspective. During some periods, younger whisky was actually preferred to the old stuff. Take Glen Grant. Its charismatic second owner, James ‘The Major’ Grant, oversaw growth in aged whisky sales – but kept a deep stock of the young stuff, “plain and clear,” for drinkers in his local community, who preferred a lighter, fruitier flavor.

Tasting notes: Lagavulin 8 Year Old

Appearance: Clear, very pale straw

Nose: Tons of kippery peat mixed with a fresh grainy sweetness, like multigrain bread toasted over an industrial fire and slathered in clover honey. Notes of briny salt overlay a fundamental freshness, aromas of ripe pear and soft dried apricot. There’s also a bit of hay-like character, but very lively and fresh-cut. Peat skews towards the maritime, but the smoke is bold too.

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Palate: Unflinchingly smoky in a heavy, extinguished campfire kind of way. Lots of that kippered fish character sticks around from the nose, salty and iodine, without straying over into meatiness. Nice notes of pear candy and apple peel as well as a sweet, almost sticky malt character runs under the whole thing, tapering off to a long, dry, pleasantly ashy finish that hangs for a long time. So delightful that you’re loath to taste anything else.

Conclusion

This is whisky in HiDef – pure, clearly defined, unadorned, with a laser-like yet not overwhelming intensity. Despite its relatively high proof, it’s not particularly hot, and the balance between smoke and sweetness is hugely inviting. It’s like the essential core of what makes Lagavulin Lagavulin, stripped of any superfluous vanillins. Plus I appreciate how beautifully this bucks the twin contemporary Scotch trends of fantastically expensive luxury bottlings, and goofy NAS spirits. Effing great. I loved everything about this.

FINAL SCORE: 95/100

Margarett Waterbury

Margarett Waterbury is the author of "Scotch: A Complete Introduction to Scotland's Whiskies" and a full-time freelance writer and editor

specializing in the beverage industry. Her work has graced the pages of numerous publications, including Whisky Advocate, Food and Wine, Spirited Magazine, Artisan Spirit, Edible Seattle, Sip Northwest, Civil Eats, Travel Oregon, and many others. She also boasts editorial experience as the former managing editor of Edible Portland and as a co-founder and former managing editor of The Whiskey Wash. In recognition of her talent, Margarett received the Alan Lodge Young Drinks Writer of the Year award in 2017 and was awarded fellowships for the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers in 2017 and 2019.

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