Saturday 22nd is Lagavulin’s open day. Laga are doing a special bottling of 528 bottles. We were not arriving until 15:00 at port askaig. We raced from the ferry right accross the island, parked up and dashed to the shop. Turned out we were just in time and got the last two bottles! Happy happy joy joy. Tasting comments below.

The weather is absolutely fantastic, there was a good crowd at the distillery and arby had a paddle. All is good in the world. We did not go to any events at laga since we arrived so late, but we are going on a warehouse tour on weds.

Special bottling has a big spicy wood hit, oily, not as sweet as the 16 or the distillers. Nice warming length maybe a bit short, touch of sulphur on the nose which is not apparent elsewhere. Nose seaside/ozone with some peat. We are tasting it against the 12 (for cask strength comparison), which is peatier, more raar, but not as woody. Both excellent, 12 is one of my top 5 standard whiskies, we will enjoy comparing the bottling vs distillers and standard later in the year

lagavulin Festival Bottling surrounding a laga 12 year old