Lagavulin Islay Jazz Festival 2021, 70cl

The Islay Jazz Festival, an annual event in which the Lagavulin distillery takes part, has been welcoming visitors for many years. Each year, a limited Lagavulin natural cask strength bottling is relea...+ MORE

Appearance

Pale harvest gold. Very good beading and multiple long skinny legs. Refill AO, Mezcal finish.

Body

Medium to full.

Nose

A forward nose, with quite some prickle. A pungent, distinctive and unusual smoky-meaty top note. Pork chops on a hickory-chip barbecue slathered in chipotle sauce. Below this, the familiar Lagavulin linseed oil, and more fragrant smoke. Water brings up much more, increasingly perfumed wood smoke.

Palate

At natural strength, really smooth and rich in texture and immediately sweet-savoury in taste, then quickly more and more smoky and warming, as spicy waves of barbecue hickory wood smoke sweep over the palate to reveal a growing smoke-dried Jalapeno pepper heat. Water softens the texture and dulls the heat; still sweet overall, but the fire is subdued now.

Finish

Long, smoky and drying, as more than a little of that chilli heat lingers with the smoke in a pleasing and fiercely warming finale. Similar but lighter with water.