Information:

Distillery: Lagavulin^TM

Age: 25 Years Old

Strength: 55% ABV

Place of Origin: Lagavulin

Region: Islay

Available from: specialist Whisky shops and Lagavulin Distillery 8,000 bottles available worldwide.

In brief: Rich, intense and complex; deeper, less racy and more rounded than younger expressions, while just as drying. This mature Lagavulin shows a full range of smoke blackened, meaty and peaty notes that are wonderfully offset by balancing ripe fruits, mintiness and sweet cereals.

Palate:

A voluptuous, oily texture, with a bitter-sweet and gingery, slightly drying start. Intense, with masses of charred wood, oak-smoked meats, honey, burnt treacle tart and ash. Then, refreshing spearmint. Salty, then sweet, with water; gentle peat and spearmint. Now it’s soft, comforting and relaxed.

Nose:

Profound, complex and dry overall. Rich yet elusive, it really takes time to open up, first offering liquid dried fruits; figs, dates or prunes, a trace of treacle toffee with almost no sweetness and a distant faintly medicinal note of wood polish, which takes on char and smoke, as with a fine old oak chest left too close to a roaring fire. Gradually you discover jammy notes with roasted meats and honey; even, a raspberry coulis. Finally, there are clean ripe red apples, mint and, in time, a whiff of sealing wax. Water brings up soft toffee and milk chocolate, sweet marzipan over sour cherries, cold smoke, burnt timbers and pine resin.

Finish:

Long, smooth, sweetly honeyed and elegant, with slowly rising fragrant wood smoke, ash, salt and a subtle, chilli like heat; followed by cooling eucalyptus. Finally, oily and bittersweet,with burnt orange peel, all of it lingering deliciously. Softer with water, which brings a late, quiet pungency.