Lagavulin Islay Jazz Festival 2016

This was the distillery's Islay Jazz Festival release for 2016, the bicentenary year, matured in American oak and ex-Bourbon, an outturn of 6,000 bottles. Lagavulin has stood at its namesake bay since 1816, one of Islay's south-shore distilleries.

A famously unhurried distillation gives a heavy, peated body. Matured in American oak and ex-Bourbon at full strength, the wood gives vanilla beneath the smoke.

Bottled undiluted at 54.5%. Guaiacol leads the phenols behind the smoke, the oak giving vanilla. Tasting notes take in smoke, a coal-gas edge, leather, a nutty note, tobacco and a kippery edge. A bicentenary jazz festival edition.