Lagavulin 25 Years Old (200 Years of Lagavulin Distillery Managers)

This 25 Years Old was released in 2016 to mark 200 years of Lagavulin, honouring the distillery's managers, with sales raising money for Islay charities. An outturn of 8,000 bottles matured in Oloroso. One of Islay's south-coast distilleries, Lagavulin was founded in 1816.

A famously unhurried distillation gives a heavy, peated body. Matured in Oloroso casks at full strength, a quarter century wraps the smoke in deep dried fruit.

51.7%, the cask's own strength. Guaiacol and other phenols power the smoke, the Oloroso giving dried fruit, melanoidins reading as fig and raisin. Tasting notes take in smoke, old wood, a rubbery note, a sherried character, citrus and a coal-gas edge. A deep anniversary 25.