
December 15, 2023

The New Time Warp Sessions

Today Lagavulin 12, tequila and guest

We'll first have the guest as the mandatory apéritif, then an old official 12 yo 'cream label' bottled for France. then the recent 12 Special Release (crazy finishing approaching…)

Spoof advert for some kind of rum finish, 2006 (WF)

Laggan Mill 11 yo 2001/2013 (46%, The Cooper's Choice, hogshead, cask #493, 450 bottles)

Certainly, it is not written anywhere that Laggan Mill is Lagavulin, despite the many similarities in sound, but we know that the owners of The Cooper's Choice, The Vintage Malt Whisky Co, have long benefitted, and possibly still benefit from supply contracts. They had, in fact, bottled some 'Lagavulin' quite a few years ago. By the way, isn't a distillery currently being built at Laggan Farm, on Loch Indaal? Colour: white wine. Nose: barley syrup, shoe polish, lemon oil, clams and whelks, smoked kippers and a little engine oil and tar… There's little doubt, in my opinion, but remember what Nietzsche said, convictions are more dangerous than lies (more or less). Mouth: typical 'clean sweetness' at first, oranges and mercurochrome, oysters, then pickled gherkins, tarry and smoky almonds… It's not hugely complex but it's all perfect, with an acetic, slightly bacterial side that I just love and makes it less cleanly clean. Finish: more esters than smoke, olives, capers, gherkins, edible seaweed… Comments: for lovers of this style, exclusively (more for us, ha-ha). Anyway, it's already an old bottle mind you, it was bottled ten years ago…
SGP:466 - 88 points.

Lagavulin 12 yo (43%, OB, cream label, Pure Islay Malt, Corima Import Paris, +/-1980)

The tarry, even rubbery style of the old Lagavulins, so appreciated nowadays, was mainly reserved for thrill-seekers at the time this bottle was offered. Rumour has it that in Italy, distributors would give you two bottles for every case of rum purchased. The launch of the Classic Malts in the late 1980s, which included the new Lagavulin 16 year old replacing the version we're about to taste, propelled the famous Islay distillery into orbit and exposed its rather extreme style to a broader audience. Be that as it may, these 12-year-old 'cream label' are now legendary, regardless of their importers (Montenegro, Carpano, Cinoco, Stahlkopf, or, as in this case, Corima in France). They were replaced, before the 16-year-old, by a version featuring a very beautiful coloured drawing of the distillery, a green bottle, and a cork topped with an equally green capsule. In the case at hand, it was still a white screw cap. Colour: gold. Nose: very typical, evolving towards chicken broth, melted leeks, or marrow, in addition to a very complex but tar-marked peatiness, as with all respectable Lagavulins. There's also an old cigar box, some dried mandarin peels (chen-pi), orange marmalade, amaretti, and an increasingly evident fresh citrus side. Not to forget the old tyres, of course. A marvel that also shows the whole interest of these 3% additional alcohol, an effect also found in the old Laphroaig 10 years at 43% instead of 40% vol. Incredible. Mouth: magnificent. A grand old Islay malt, with a rather sublime evolution, sweet broth, fig wine, liquorice, fermented fruits, eaux-de-vie of small berries (service tree, etc.), and a salty, tarry peat that signs off the whole. Quite irresistible. Finish: long, sweet-salty, then candied. More figs, dates, and rancio. Pipe tobacco notes on the retro-olfaction. Comment: perhaps a bit sweeter than other bottlings from the same period, but it suits it marvellously well. It can almost be savoured like a fine white wine. Every enthusiast should have tasted these old Lagavulin 12-year-old cream labels at least once!
SGP: 556 - 94 points.

Lagavulin 12 yo 'The Ink of Legends' (56.4%, OB, Special Release 2023, Tequila finish)

Suzy, the world has gone mad, they've imposed on this young Lagavulin a finishing in tequila barrels from their own Don Julio brand, which is a rather carnival-esque idea to me. In my simple world, there can only be two reasons for doing this: either there was a batch of nearly wrecked Lagavulin barrels that absolutely needed to be salvaged, or they've just hired some new 'what-the-heck-why-not' kinds of marketeers. Not sure what's best… Now you never know, we like to find agave in our malts and some aromas sure would overlap nicely… BTW we had liked 2022's 'The Flames of The Phoenix' a lot (WF 89). Colour: straw. Nose: more or less what I was actually expecting, many aromas overlap, especially the salty, coastal, rooty and olive-y sides. Which generates an increased feeling of 'smoked olive brine' to which we are absolutely not opposed. With water: no, chalk, rocks, slate, wool, smoky porridge… Mouth (neat): I'd have never said this was premixed with tequila. A lot of brine, seawater, olives, gherkins, samphires, oyster plant, then pickled plums and small lemons, while it is getting a little more syrupy over the minutes. Iodine and plasticine are there too. With water: frankly sweeter, but that can be very Lagavulin too. We're also somewhat reminded of the Italian olive liqueurs, which they make for example around the Lago de Garda if I remember well. Finish: long, very Lagavulin, very briny. Comments: rather hated the idea but rather loved the result. They just shouldn't have told us. B***** marketers (love them too) but please no Don Papa finish next year or we send WF's permanently hungry Dobermans.
SGP:567 - 89 points.

Check the index of all Lagavulin we've tasted so far