Lagavulin 8yo
Official Bottling | 48% ABV
Peated Whisky Is A Scary Prospect
I was afraid of peated whisky. I rolled into this world of whisky aboard a magnificent gold-edged sherry chariot, with my chest puffed, red silk cape flapping behind me, pointing nonchalantly towards the horizon. So the concept of a whisky that tastes like smoke filled me with dread. It was compounded a little by my previous infatuation: gin. I’d been buying a lot of gin in a bid to find one that resonated with me, and in my quest I bought a bottle of Darnley’s Cottage Series gin: Smoke & Zest, created with barley, orange and Lapsang Souchong, hello sailor! I still remember the repulsion – like drinking an ashtray, and let’s be fair, I don’t think many people rub their hands at the prospect of that, do they?
I first tried peated whisky at the Scotch Whisky Experience in Edinburgh following a magnificent day of great food and warm summer sun in the capital to celebrate my wife and I’s birthdays – we were born two days apart. Following a lovely tour around whisky origins via the medium of a surreal whisky barrel ride, we headed to the basement tasting room – covid protocols still very much in play. Laid before us were five drams and as the tour guide talked us through what we looked upon, the final Glencairn was revealed to be a peated whisky. Hairs standing up on my neck, it turned out to be a Port Charlotte 10 year old that would shatter my peat fear. At first we weren’t allowed to look at it, touch it or smell it – our chaperone said it was something we’d not forget in a hurry, and he was right. The flight consisted of a Glenkinchie 12, Glengoyne 10, Dewars 12, an Auchentoshan American Oak and the Port Charlotte. I was really enjoying the spread of whisky they were offering – it didn’t knock anyone’s socks off, but for someone like my wife, who was newer to whisky than I was, it was tailored nicely for the crowd, most of whom were tourists looking for something to do that afternoon.
As we worked our way along the flight, we quietly talked among ourselves, scared to proffer any public declarations of smell and taste for fear of “getting it wrong”. But soon the drams were loosening lips and we were discussing the various tasting notes we were collectively finding – strawberries on a bed of rice, being one. We soon reached the finale, the big boy: peated whisky. The showman asked us all to close our eyes and picture a beachfront scene. There was a light breeze blowing off the ocean, with waves lapping and seagulls squawking. As the wind changed direction there was a bag of chips with salt and vinegar lashings. Then another change of direction and a bonfire, way up the beach burning red hot, with teenagers roasting marshmallows over it. All this smell experience was wafting up into your nostrils and now, with that vision supplanted in the mind, let’s drink!
Huge smell. Huge flavour. Overwhelming in places – a wave of medicinal, bonfire aroma followed by a very close taste experience that was so unique to me that I don’t think I had the words to describe. Powerful and evocative, yet also sweet and addictive. Just as powerful, a truth bore down upon me and released the chains of peat that rested heavy on my shoulders - I really liked it.
Afterwards I bought a bottle of the PC10 and continued to explore it in isolation, until I was offered some rather attractively priced Ardbeg through someone who works in the industry. I accepted the offer and placed my order for a bottle of Uigeadail, Wee Beastie 5yo, An Oa and the core 10 year old expression. My peat journey was poised to ramp up significantly, and over the course of the following months I enjoyed all of those bottles, while I also tried samples from various kind people, which allowed me to get a grip on the range of peaty flavours available. From powerhouse face-blasters to slightly less powerhouse face-blasters, I have become a regular enjoyer of peated whiskies. Through this prism of heavily-peated offerings, I’ve gone back to other things I had considered quite smokey before and found incredible new experiences in those bottles. A great example is Ardnamurchan 07.21:05, which went from bonfires on the wind pre-peat journey, to a beautifully balanced sweet smoke that saw me consume about a half-bottle one evening and I woke up the next morning feeling like I’d slept on a pyre.
One of my whisky pals speaks regularly and highly of Lagavulin 16 – it’s his favourite dram. Given the recent price hike, he’s offered me a sample or two (as he has a few bottles in his stash) which I’ll take up when I remember to take sample bottles to him. Recently supermarket Tesco priced the Lagavulin 8 rather incredibly at £38 through their Clubcard scheme and it was almost a no-brainer to get a bottle to see what all this fuss was about. I abstained from opening it for a wee while as I worked through the growing set of open bottles, until one particularly challenging work week when, in a flurry of wide-eyed madness, I opened six new bottles of whisky. Because why the hell not! Whisky is for drinking, after all.
The Lagavulin 8 was part of this mass opening, and when I first sniffed those eight year old fumes, I knew that it was going to be a slightly different experience than I was used to with peated whisky, and furthermore, completely at odds with my expectation.
Alfred, really?
Review
Artificial colouring, 48% ABV
£38 w/ Tesco Clubcard | £55 otherwise. Widely available and plentiful.
I am not swayed by whisky colour at all, which is a great card to hold, I think. Enjoying light-coloured but exceptionally flavourful drams very early in my whisky life has meant I hold no preconceptions for what a whisky will taste like when colour is involved. The smoked green glass of the Lagavulin 8 bottle gives me no indication anyway, and it’s not until I poured the first dram I saw that it's very light - tallying with its age and indicating a non-fiddled flag of truth. Very good!
To give me the maximum chance of effective reviewing, I poured alongside a dram of Ardbeg Wee Beastie (because youthful spirits should be enjoyed with their contemporaries), an Uigeadail too, along with an non-peated dram: Arran 10. Four rather special drams lined up, but only one is to be my focus tonight.
A moment’s pause for my expectations. I’ve tried quite a bit of old, young, differently casked and peated whiskies now, so my inkling is to think that this spirit will be bright, powerful and unruly. I expect this Lagavulin to present quite an ashy signature as a result. Maybe even metallic. I know that three year old whiskies I’ve tried do have that youthful exuberance appearing as metallic or a big alcoholic presence. Can another five years on top of the three round the edges? The Wee Beastie, at five years of age, is edgy compared to the Ardbeg 10 when enjoyed together, but I prefer the Beastie because of it – the dram tastes more explosive and flavourful as a result. If the Wee Beastie is explosive, then this slightly older whisky might follow suit. I’ll soon find out.
Nose
Malty bonfire. School brick paint, peppery plasticine and some fresh notes – light, salty coastal breeze. Cashew nuts, match strike paper, cornflakes and Rice Crispies. Wow, perfume! Violets. Spring flowers. There’s an overt creaminess to this dram, which is very moreish. It’s usually big medicinal TCP notes that appear for peated whiskies for me, but here it’s different: Pickled onion Monster Munch eaten in a room that someone wearing Old Spice aftershave has just departed.
Palate
There’s a good dose of zing to this in the form of that pickled onion, vinegar note. It’s immediate and it’s fleeting, decaying quickly to a more balanced creamy smokey sweetness - certainly not as fiery or bitter edged as PC10 and not as razor sharp as Ardbeg Wee Beastie either. It’s a more accessible experience. Sweet jammy maltiness and Rice Crispies if they were toasted to the point of burning. A delicate floral thread weaves its way and I’m feeling buoyant. The school brick paint makes a brief cameo. This is incredibly addictive and the finish is decently long and comforting; every sip reveals something different. Fairground caramelised nuts in a triangular paper poke. A flash of salty humbug and the resultant chewy caramel payoff. I’ve read about meaty and/or leathery notes in the palate, and I can find a semblance if I search, probably adding a robustness to the ensemble – like putting chocolate into a chilli. It adds body.
The Dregs
For a peated whisky, this Lagavulin 8 is the obverse of my expectation coin. In fact, it’s not a metal coin but one of those nail-bursting chocolate ones you only see at Christmas. There’s no harshness to this dram. There’s no fiery heat or whack across the chops. Instead it wafts into the room wearing a velvet jacket and smoking an expertly tamped pipe. It pads softly across the carpet, eases into the generously upholstered leather wingback and, with a knowing nod, delicately lowers the arm on the Transrotor Artus to the soft report of a French horn, beginning Chopin’s Andante spianato et Grande polonaise brillante, Op.22: Grande Polonaise in E-flat Major. Molto allegro. Jest aside, listen to it because if the Lagavulin 8 was a piece of music, it would be this – all 9-and-a-bit minutes of cascading, delicate, powerful, surprising, dark, light, meandering, triumphant, perilously captivating poise. That Chopin is going places, you know.
Another way of saying it is, this is a whisky of unexpected smokey decadence. My peat experience up to this point has been big, bold bruisers, forcing me to really fight to understand what the hell is going on. It’s always an exercise in focus and, when drinking in comparison as I like to do, a lengthy process to get to the roots of what is good or bad in each one; like fighting through dense smoke by waving a toothpick. This is not that.
From the first sip you are embraced reassuringly beside an open fire; warmed fully and charmed by the ambience, but not ablaze, and that alone makes this a super dram. Peated whisky obviously has a huge place in whiskyland, and I love uncorking the Wee Beastie if I’ve accumulated some pressure that needs releasing through my ear valves. I don’t yearn for the next level of intense peat, and things like the Octomore range with their twelvty million parts of peaty nibs, don't factor into my worldview, at present. But I rejoice in the discovery that there exists, in the repertoire of peat, a confident smooth sailor carving through a surging sea, with the bearing set and sails trimmed; only the destination awaits. The destination for the Lagavulin 8 is another pour because, hold me back, this stuff is like sour cream & onion Pringles or Bourbon biscuits. If someone doesn’t stage an intervention soon, it’ll be consumed in a blaze of uncontrollable gluttony.
This whisky should really be appreciated as a £38 whisky, not an eight year old, in my eyes. It doesn’t fit to say it’s youthful and it betrays the whisky to frame it as such. It has some characteristics of youth – citrus and pepper poppers, but it’s delicately balanced with other, more dominantly delicious notes that take the reins soon after. As a sub-£40 peated whisky, up against Ardbeg and Port Charlotte, I think it stands apart. I’m really keen to try Ledaig 10 – the de facto affordable peated whisky de jour – and see if that holds a candle to the Lagavulin 8. But it needs to be said, given that not everyone is a Tesco Clubcard member, that if this is posed as a £55 whisky, I start to wonder if it’s still as good value. Knowing how much I enjoy it, I think I’d be comfortable reconciling the quality versus the higher price, but luckily I don’t have to; at £38, it’s bordering on offensive to not buy more.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC
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