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Dwelling
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| Hello, that is one among our (nearly) every day tastings. Santé! |
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September 10, 2024
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WF’s Little Duos, as we speak a number of the craziest current Lagavulins
It is all the time a pleasure to style Lagavulin, even when simply two at a time. We’ll begin with the oldest one, because it has the bottom alcohol content material, by far.
Iain McArthur (Diageo)
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Lagavulin 31 yo 1991/2023 (45.6%, OB, Cask of Distinction, chosen by Sebastian Jaeger for GourmetPool, fresh-charred American oak hogshead, cask #6498, 213 bottles)
A cask destined for Germany, although these bottles have certainly crossed many borders by now. No must introduce the 1991s, however what’s notably intriguing right here is the cask, removed from the hefty sherry sorts. Color: pale white wine (remarkably). Nostril: ah, we’ve landed squarely within the coronary heart of Lagavulin. It’s like being locked contained in the Port Ellen Maltings for a great three days. I discover heaps of hot and cold ashes, olives and capers, total packets of nori, curries, roasted pistachios, dried kelp on the seashore, miso, and even mussels in white wine and rollmops. There’s a distinctively intense shochu-like high quality right here, completely mad and nearly totally devoid of fruit right here. Mouth: adios, bye-bye, auf Wiedersehen. It’s as if this whisky has been matured in pure ashes (fill a jar with ashes, add new-make, wait). Solely after a second do the olives, smoked fish, Far Jap soups, seawater, and the like come by. The precision and austere grandeur are extraordinary. Proper then, let’s quiet down. End: large mezcal. Effectively, really, large Lagavulin, with a contact of fir wooden. Feedback: earlier than this regenerated hogshead, may this child have secretly frolicked maturing in stone jars? You’d be hard-pressed to get nearer to the pure distillate than this, and at over thirty years of age, no much less.
SGP:377 – 94 factors. |
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Mr. Iain ‘Pinkie’ McArthur, the ground is yours…
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Lagavulin 18 yo ‘Iain’s Farewell Dram’ (58.7%, OB, 2nd fill manzanilla, 212 bottles, 2023)
Pinkie’s retirement was akin to dismantling the stays of Dunyvaig or flattening the Paps of Jura—it’s left fairly a mark. The selection of a 2nd fill manzanilla cask exhibits a stage of mental brilliance that surpasses even that of Sharon Stone (although the resemblance stops there). Color: gold. Nostril: that is large. There’s a pronounced ‘sulphurous’ high quality that isn’t really sulphur, should you catch my drift. A freshly extinguished seashore hearth, white truffles from Piedmont, inexperienced walnuts (thanks, manzanilla), wild mushrooms, whiffs of pickles in brine, and heaps of seaweed. Once more, the fruit is extremely discreet. With water: no adjustments in anyway. Mouth (neat): for a 2nd fill, there’s nonetheless numerous manzanilla affect, which is simply as properly—we’re followers of manzanilla, particularly when En Rama. So, seawater, chalk, walnuts, mustard, radishes, oysters, and an avalanche of ashes. Dazzling, although this model does are likely to divide opinions. Shopping for a bottle doesn’t precisely entitle you to grasp this liquid, does it? With water: once more, little change. Maybe much more smoked oysters and a real punch of salt, or extra precisely, salinity. End: monstrously lengthy. Salt, olives, vinegar, oysters, mustard, cigar ash, ‘sulphur’, and walnuts. Dry as a bone, with completely zero sweetness—there’s extra sugar in a bit of granite. Feedback: what number of occasions can one retire in a profession on Islay?
SGP:377 – 94 factors. |
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It is a tie. I’ve to say, we noticed it coming. I consider these two bottles alone greater than make up for the very barely questionable tequila flavourings imposed upon this magical whisky that’s Lagavulin. Simply saying.
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