Lagavulin – Lg8 – Elements of Islay [Mystery Review]

Thanks to /u/Throzen for sharing this dram.

Mystery sample time! It’s always fun to have a new whisky, and one blind is pretty cool. Also single casks can really, really vary one each.

Thus I went in completely blind. Let’s see how it tasted, shall we?

Price: N/A at the LCBO

Region: Islay

Vintage: 2006

Bottled: 2018

Age: 12-years-old

Cask Type: 2 Bourbon Barrels

Abv: 59.5%

Colour: 7.5Y 9/6

Nose: Wheat, bacon, farmy, malt, butter, herbal

Initially, there’s some cereal and bacon. Love bacon. Definitely something peated. Gets kinda dirty after that. Dirty like down at the farm, but in the dirt way, not in the stereotypical family sex way applied unfairly to rural types.

Water brings out malt and butter, with just a bit of herbal.

Taste: Chocolate, malt, cashew, bacon, popcorn, lemon

Nice chocolate note. Less dirty than before, more malt and bacon and even more of that cereal and butter. Really sweet, nice peated dram.

Finish: Lemongrass, peach, farmy, raspberry, peach

Long finish. Goes back to dirty but it doesn’t have much smoke to back that up. Goes really fruity. Like, really. Like I wrote peach twice right there, and left it, even though I’m mostly sober while writing this.

Conclusion: Cleanest Ledaig I’ve ever had. Dirtiest Lagavulin I’ve ever had. I had guessed it was a middle-aged Ledaig that was in ex-bourbon casks. Turns out it’s dirtier of the cleaner Islay drams. Got that yet?

What I’m saying is Lagavulin’s usually aren’t this dirty. I feel like this is nearly there. I want a bit more on the finish. I’d like if the taste kept up the dirt factor. I really enjoyed the butter and chocolate though. Needs a bit of a push, but none-the-less fun to have.

83/100

Guess: Ledaig 12, ex-bourbon cask

Actually: Lagavulin – Lg8 – Elements of Islay

Scotch review #1155, Islay review #306, Whisky review #1779