Lagavulin 16 Year Old - White Horse - 1990s
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Lagavulin 16 Year Old - White Horse - 1990s
Lagavulin 16 Year Old. White Horse Distillers. Bottled 1990s. 70cl. 43%.
An early White Horse Distillers bottling of the iconic Lagavulin 16 Year Old, dating from the 1990s and released as part of the celebrated Classic Malts of Scotland range.
The Classic Malts range was launched in 1988, with Lagavulin chosen to represent Islay. The 16 Year Old quickly established itself as one of the standout whiskies in the collection, introducing a much wider audience to Lagavulin's distinctive combination of powerful peat smoke, maritime character and rich, sherried depth.
These early White Horse Distillers bottlings have since developed a particularly strong following. Many regard the 1990s as an excellent period for the distillery, with these bottlings often prized for their rich, weighty style and the character of the older stocks used at the time.
Lagavulin's success during the 1990s was such that demand began to outpace the availability of suitably mature whisky. With the flagship expression requiring a full 16 years of maturation, stocks could not simply be replenished quickly, and supplies were periodically restricted as the owners sought to protect future availability.
A classic early example of Lagavulin 16 Year Old from an important period in the history of both the distillery and the Classic Malts range.
Lagavulin is one of the classic distilleries on the southern coast of Islay, famed for their heavily-peated single malt whisky. Situated between Laphroaig and Ardbeg on the road from Port Ellen to Kildalton, Lagavulin is often considered the most stylistically elegant of the trio, perhaps because its entry-level 16-year-old is generally more nuanced than its neighbour’s standard 10-year-olds. Lagavulin’s house style also embraces a strong sweetness alongside its phenolicity.
Lagavulin has been a staple of United Distillers/Diageo’s regionally-themed Classic Malts range of single malt whiskies since the series first appeared in 1987. The distillery’s relatively low output and long ageing requirements mean that stocks must be carefully husbanded and independent bottlings of Lagavulin are therefore exceptionally rare, although some superb long-aged examples have appeared from The Syndicate, a mysterious cabal of Islay insiders.
Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.
This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.