Saddled in between Laphroaig and Ardbeg is the Lagavulin Distillery. Lagavulin is a Diageo owned distillery and as such its pretty automated. The buildings, however, are old school and beautiful. I really like how the distillery building was built before the paved road, you can tell this because it looks like the building is encroaching into the road. That encroachment only happens when the building was there first.
Inside is a small gift shop with an old university feeling. There are some wonderful bottlings available, I picked up the 16 year old Feis Ile from 2017. And many display bottles that induce a yearning for the last century or the one before. In fact, they like to tell their history saying that the distilleries at Lagavulin have been distilling since the 1700s but only legalized in 1816.
We took the famous Warehouse Demonstration Tour with Iain McArthur. Iain will be retiring in early 2020 so we were lucky to catch one of his last tours. https://www.malts.com/en-row/distilleries/lagavulin/warehouse-demonstration/
We took a lot of video of Iain and there were about 15 people on the tour. Iain did a great job explaining the process and the casks. The samples started with a taste of the 2019 Feis Ile – the Feis Ile is the Islay Festival of Music which takes place every year in late May and early June. https://www.islayfestival.com The Island is filled with people and the distilleries usually produce a special tasting for each year’s event. Lagavulin bottles their annual expression and it becomes a bit of a collectors item. The 2017 was a 6,000 bottle run which does not seem like much of a collectors item. I like the taste and I’m not much of a collector so my 2017 will most likely never leave my apartment in Switzerland.
The tour moves on with two younger tastings, a 7 yr old and a 9 yr old. These are pulled directly from the cask so the math becomes easy, 2019 minus 7 years is 2012. We then moved on to the older casks of a 21 yr old and 22 yr old. Striking how different a single year can taste. Obviously, the older casks are highly valued but in many regards the hot, younger expressions were better tasting.
Lagavulin allows participants to take samplers or roadies. And a feature I really appreciated, at the end, as a 6th sample, they let everyone choose a refill from any of the ones we tasted. This allowed me to use my roadie bottle and bring a sample back to my girlfriend in Switzerland. I saved a bit of the 21 yr old for her as well. Sure enough, when I returned, we looked at my photos and sampled the scotches as I told the stories behind my photos.
After the tour, I went into the Lagavulin tasting bar and found Leslie and Allan, our Laphroaig friends from the day before. There are some light snacks available and a wonderful hot chocolate (with or without Scotch). And there are more samples available for purchase. Mark and I were walking to Ardbeg next and needed to limit our time so we did not stay for long.