Lagavulin 1993 Islay Jazz Festival 2011

Lagavulin 1993 Islay Jazz Festival 2011, 18 YO, 55,4 %

A kind soul gave me a sample of this whisky a few weeks ago. So here are my views on the Lagavulin 1993 Islay Jazz Festival 2011. As the name suggests this whisky was released in conjunction with the Islay Jazz Festival in 2011.

This whisky was distilled on 1993-02-08, and matured for 18 years in a single Bodega Sherry cask (cask #355). The total outturn when it was bottled in 2011 was 576 bottles. This certainly indicates that the cask in question was a butt.

If you can find a bottle online, the going rate seems to be around € 750.

Nose: Opens right up - a very welcoming dram. A warm embrace of barbecue on the beach. Bacon, smoked sausage, raw meat, turpentine, iodine, caramel, sticky sweet barbecue sauce, nuts and sweet wood smoke.

Taste: Full bodied and then some - this is rich stuff. Massive spiciness hits me right away. Also massive amounts of ashes with sweet fruit flavours. It is so big it is almost numbing the senses. Hints of oak, nuts, malt and leather.

Finish: Medium long finish. It does land a bit abruptly. One second we are still flying high on the spicy peatiness and the fruity sweetness, and then we nearly crash to extinction. Moments before we hit the ground we are saved by a thin layer of caramel, fudge and brown sugar.

Comments: Lovely nose, great initial attack, then it dies off a bit too quickly.

Score (87/100)

Image from The Whisky Vault.

Sláinte! - Thomas