Lagavulin 12 Year Old bottled 2011 11th Release

The Lagavulin 12 is a champion of many and a mystery to a few, although through the reviews related to the 2012 edition one feels that it is characterful of the hard times actual to the world outside your window. The last Lagavulin 12s have not been up to the standard, so i decided to give some very recent past nostalgia (if you can even call it that, as it is from 2011). This is known to being the last great year of the 12 year old.

Nose: Foggy, seaside towns morning, in october. Autumn leaves and spent matches. Classic Lagavulin with Lapsang-souchon smoky-tea note. Subtle peat, big but elegant. Grassy but nothing dominates, everything is in place. Slight and subtle iodine and seaspray. Delicate smoke surrounding the ensemble

Palate: Bonfire and Harbor peat with a complex barley sweetness. The peat is very crisp, but yet mellow, calm, collected and very sophisticated. Candy floss, lemon drops and sweet lemon juice, vanilla pods. The vegetal grassy note comes back from the nose alongside some mushrooms!

The peat comes back for a glorified encore. Grassy, bonfire and seaside/seashore peat. The lemon/vanilla combo comes back to balance out some vegetal bitter tones from the oak and the peat.

A Gentle Giant of a dram this, if the giant is of the more cultivated or educated type! Am going to enjoy every last drop of this if things do not improve soon for Lagavulin, or even if they do. Great Peat Legend. Monster would be too vulgar for this..

Back in the midst of time Lagavulin and Laphroaig had a rather more lively rivalry than they do today. In fact, there was even a still within Lagavulin (AKA Malt-mill) attempting to replicate the Laphroaig spirit! Now though Lagavulin is well appreciated for its own character.

These distilleries are sort of old money in the world of Islay with the emergence and resurgence of others, especially Ardeg, Kilchoman along with Bruichladdich and all of its derivations. This should not be forgotten, Islays distinctive aristocrat, 12 years old and at cask strength.

• Nose: reasonably well balanced to be honest. Smoky sooty peat, medium earthiness, seaweed, very over-extracted coffee. With water smoked fish, dry earth, more intense coffee, and a much more phenolic style of peat, pungent, some petrol. These are all big powerful aromas, but they are well woven together very well, she’s a complex nose.

• Pallet: fire, intense salt, aniseed bitterness, plenty of peat, almond, just a hint of citrus sweetness there, trying to get a look in, dark chocolate, bitter coffee again. With water starts with sweet toffee, stone fruit, then salt again, then the peat builds as you hold and swallow, notes of dark chili chocolate, something slightly mineral and definitely rose water, maybe even a touch of jasmine as well.

• Finish: quite nutty, the peat and smoke built up and fade away regularly, some sweetness there too, hard to pin down but it’s there, salty, eventually it goes a bit acidic and dry. With water clings to your cheeks, it’s nice dry earth, medium peat and smoke wafting away, savoury finish, elements of citrus again and cocoa. Very dry

• Mark neat – 8.5, with water – 9.2.

If you can be bothered reading an extended metaphor, please continue, if not, fair enough and thanks for getting this far.

Lagavulin is to Laphroaig as Audi is to Lamborghini. The Laga's is very peaty, its phenolic but its not outrageous or ridiculous, its controlled, measured, well engineered. This is not to say its boring or anything, as you can see i very much like it. It's complex and beautifully constructed whisky, but everything is on a leash, everything is efficient. I like that sort of thing.

Nose: An eclectic orgy of flavour, one wouldn't even know where to begin. It's the classic tango of sweet and smoke that seemingly only Lagavulin can achieve with such elegance and consistency across all of its range. Here we have toffeed herrings, lamb with orange jelly, vanilla sponge with seaweed syrup, and vegetable ratatouille infused with cigar smoke. Walnuts and avocados are spread on a wet lawn, while raspberry coulis and candle wax is spread on a freshly polished wooden floor, all for us to enjoy. Mesmerising stuff.

Taste: More sweet and smoke dance routines here, however perhaps from the tango on the nose we moved a more slower-paced waltz. Apple shisha smoke wafts through as we sip on a coffee frappucino, still enjoying the vanilla sponge cake found on the nose. Following the frappucino we move on to a more traditional lapsang souchong tea, to accompany the blood oranges, and ginger meringue. Course sea-salt and beach pebble add a savoury mineral underscore to this most endearing of waltzes.

Finish: The more chemical and mineral underscore becomes very much the leading melody in this final dance. Menthol vanilla, luxury soap, chocolate covered salt-lick, coffee beans and lapsang souchong tea-leaves. This more sober and savoury finish means that there is no cloying or over-indulgence in the richness of flavour, and thus leaves us ready to go straight back in for another sip. And at cask strength this is a dangerously seductive routine.

Balance: Truly stunning whisky, so confident in its charismatic elegance. There is so much depth and breadth of flavour, yet so well married together and contained. It hardly even feels like its trying. Total ballroom finesse.