Lagavulin 16

Lagavulin Distillery, a lovely place on Islay that we have visited for a couple of times now. In 2013 we were there during Feis Ile and had a lovely distillery managers tour and tasting. Two years later, in 2015, we found ourselves back again there for the Feis Ile festivities, warehouse tasting and walking around the distillery and enjoying the great views. Some pictures that WhiskySpeller took can be found here, here and here and from our visit here. 

From the last tastings we took some samples of the drams poured (due to driving is not something to do combined with drinking, thanks Lagavulin for the opportunity again) so we could enjoy a bit of it at a later time. So, this is how a small sample of Lagavulin 16 made its way home with us. Time to enjoy a bit of Islay and think back of the good memories made there with friends...

Rich notes on the nose of red fruit, peat, honey and vanilla at first. Soft notes of rosemary, heather, thyme, tangerine, red apple, banana, passion fruit, mango and raisins. There is a fresh but also dense layer beneath the fruit. Lingering towards a bit of dirty leather almost but also has something of equaliptus, but that one is very softly present. 

The palate gives a lot of the same notes like the nose, a lovely rich dram. Peat comes more to the front when tasting it, but is not overpowering all the lovely sweet notes, and makes it a lovely warm and rich dram. A good length finish showing almost a bit of crème brulee notes together with cocoa powder and dried fruits. Scoring me an 8,5 out of 10 for sure and love to have a full bottle of this at home. Got a couple of other Lagavulin expressions lined up and looking forward to exploring more of this distillery soon. For now I am going to enjoy the remainder of this sample and think back of some good times looking at this picture... Here is to new explorations! Cheers!