Your intrepid liquor reporter was browsing the shelves at my friendly neighbourhood booze merchant, when a particular bottle of whisky caught my eye.
I was looking for a nice single malt scotch to replenish the liquor cabinet, after all the good stuff was devoured by my guests on Robbie Burns Day.
Whether they just really liked the whisky I was serving, or if they were trying to wash down the haggis will remain a mystery, but it did give me the opportunity to peruse the wares of my local liquor retailer.
Imagine my surprise to find a special limited release of Lagavulin, commemorating their 200th anniversary.
Just holding the bottle in my hands seemed to transport me to the wind-swept shores of Islay, the tiny island in the Inner Hebrides, located just off the eastern coast of Scotland.
Islay is one of the five geographically protected designations for Scotch Whisky production, the others being The Highlands, The Lowlands, Speyside, and Campbeltown.
Despite being a tiny island with a population of only 3000 people, Islay is home to eight different whisky distilleries, including Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila, Kilchoman, Lagavulin, and Laphroig.
Much of the island is a peat bog, which has contributed to the unique and distinctive taste of Islay whiskies.
Both the fresh water that flows through riverbeds thick with peat, and the malting barley being heated over a peat-fueled fire, will impart smoky and medicinal notes to the whisky, resulting in strong flavours of diesel, iodine, seaweed, and a host of others that are either admired or reviled by whisky drinkers, with seemingly no middle ground.
While your intrepid liquor reporter is not a peat fiend, I do enjoy a moderately peated whisky, and Lagavulin has long been one of my favourites.
Although the Lagavulin distillery has been operating since 1816, the same site was home to several illicit distilleries as far back as 1742, so this 200th anniversary is really measuring how long taxes and business licenses have been in place, rather than how long whisky has actually been in production.
Illicit distillation increased rapidly in Scotland after the first excise tax in whisky in 1644, leading to 50 unlicensed and illegal distilleries for every one licensed distillery.
This calamitous state of affairs lasted until taxes on whisky were eased in 1823, allowing the illicit distilleries finally go legit, ushering in the modern era of the Scotch whisky industry.
Lagavulin is well-known for their use of short-necked pot stills in the distillery, which allows for only minimal fractionation of the heavier fusel oils from the lighter spirits, resulting in a much heavier and stronger flavoured whisky.
Distillation technology advanced rapidly in the 1820’s, with the invention of continuous distillation column still disrupting the spirits industry in only a few short years.
Unlike the traditional batch distillation method used in pot stills, column stills allowed for continuous distillation, in essence acting like a series of pot stills, with each layer of the column still feeding the next.
While Scottish and Irish whiskies have clung to their traditional batch distillation methods in pot stills, pretty much the rest of the world has moved to continuous distillation column stills, which are able to produce a much higher proof alcohol in a shorter period of time, although proponents of the older pot stills claim that authentic flavours are lost during continuous distillation in a column still.
The most common release from Lagavulin is a 16-year single malt, although the 200th anniversary was commemorated with releases of 8-year and 25-year bottlings. Not having $1600 to spare for the 25-year bottling, your humble narrator settled for the more reasonably priced $100 bottling of the 8-year single malt.
Taking the bottle home for an immediate sampling, your intrepid liquor reporter was greeted with the familiar aromas of seaweed and diesel oil while nosing the glass, with salty hints of smoke and toasted grains on the tongue. The finish was subtle and long, and not as overpowering as the 16-year bottlings.
For those who enjoy peated whiskies, Lagavulin is consistently rated as one of the best in the world, and is widely available here in Canada, ranging in price from around $80 up to thousands and thousands of dollars for the rarest of bottlings. If you don’t want to spring for an entire bottle, order a wee dram at your local drinking establishment and see for yourself!
