Lagavulin distillery is an

Islay Islay ( ; , ) is the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Known as "The Queen of the Hebrides", it lies in Argyll and Bute just south west of Jura, Scotland, Jura and around north of the Northern Irish coast. The island's cap ...

distillery Distillation, also classical distillation, is the process of separating the component substances of a liquid mixture of two or more chemically discrete substances; the separation process is realized by way of the selective boiling of the mixt ...

located in the village of

Lagavulin Lagavulin (, "hollow of the mill") is a small village approximately outside Port Ellen on the Isle of Islay, Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third ...

on the south of the island of

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. Lagavulin is owned by

Diageo Diageo plc ( ) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational alcoholic beverage company, with its headquarters in London, England. It is a major distributor of Scotch whisky and other spirits and operates from 132 sites around the world ...

, a multinational beverage alcohol company headquartered in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. It was previously marketed under the ''Classic Malts'' range of single malts, which is now defunct. The standard bottling is a 16-year-old, bottled at 43% ABV. They also bottle a Distiller's edition, finished in

Pedro Ximénez Pedro Ximénez (also known as PX and many other variations; Andalusian Spanish, Andalusian pronunciation ) is the name of a white Spanish wine grape variety grown in several Spanish wine regions but most notably in the (DO) of Montilla-Moriles. ...

Sherry Sherry ( ) is a fortified wine produced from white grapes grown around the city of Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia, Spain. Sherry is a drink produced in a variety of styles made primarily from the Palomino grape, ranging from light versio ...

casks. Alongside these, they regularly release a 12-year-old

cask strength Cask strength (also known as barrel proof/barrel strength) is a term used by whisky (spelt "whiskey" in Ireland and the United States) and rum producers to describe a whisky or rum that has not been substantially diluted after its storage in a cas ...

version and various older and rarer expressions. The name ''Lagavulin'' is an

anglicisation Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English language ...

of ''Lag a' Mhuilinn'', the

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...

for ''hollow of the mill''.

History

The distillery of Lagavulin officially dates from 1816, when John Johnston and Archibald Campbell Brooks constructed two distilleries on the site. One of them became Lagavulin, taking over the other—which one is not exactly known. Records show illicit distillation in at least ten illegal distilleries on the site as far back as 1742, however. The distillery was run by John Johnston until 1835 at which point the distillery had a valuation of £1,103 9s 8d. (). It was taken over by Alexander Graham who installed his son Walter Graham as the distiller. Walter ran it until 1848 when he moved to Laphroaig and presumably his brother John Crawford Graham took charge. In 1849 improvements were carried out to extend the buildings and provide new roads and access. Later John Crawford Graham entered into a partnership with James Logan Mackie. John Crowford had other business interested in

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

and gradually lessened his direct influence over the distillery which left James Logan Mackie in charge from 1856. In 1878 Peter Mackie joined his uncle's firm and in the mid-1880s, they established Mackie & Co. to market Lagavulin and other whiskies in

and further afield. Several legal battles ensued with their neighbour

Laphroaig Laphroaig distillery ( ) is a single malt Scotch whisky distillery on Islay, Scotland. It is situated on the south coast of the island, near Port Ellen, at the head of a small bay known as Loch Laphroaig. The Lagavulin and Ardbeg distillerie ...

, brought about after the distiller at Lagavulin, Peter Mackie, leased the Laphroaig distillery. It is said that Mackie attempted to copy Laphroaig's style. Since the water and peat at Lagavulin's premises was different from that at Laphroaig's, the result did not match. Peter Mackie took over as sole partner in 1889. In 1895 the two businesses amalgamated as Mackie & Co (Distillers) and began to blend White Horse using whisky from Lagavulin. In 1895, Mackie's became a

limited company In a limited company, the Legal liability, liability of members or subscribers of the company is limited to what they have invested or guaranteed to the company. Limited companies may be limited by Share (finance), shares or by guarantee. In a c ...

. Peter was in charge until 1902 by which time he was in partnership with Andrew Hair Holm. The partnership held a lease of Lagavulin for £800 per year for 50 years. The

White Horse A white horse is born predominantly white and stays white throughout its life. A white horse has mostly pink skin under its hair coat, and may have brown, blue, or hazel eyes. "True white" horses, especially those that carry one of the dominant w ...

brand became well known for its quality and won many awards. In 1908 Mackie and Co were honoured by Royal Warrant Appointment as purveyors of White Horse whisky to

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria and ...

. In the early 1920s the distillery was sold off by Iain Ramsay to Peter Mackie for £16,000 (). In 1923 the firm was acquired by Buchanan Dewar Ltd who continued with the White Horse brand. The company joined

Distillers Company The Distillers Company plc was a leading Scotch whisky company and, at one time, a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It was taken over in 1986 by Guinness & Co. and is now part of Diageo. History The Distillers Company origins lie in a trade ...

in 1925. Distillers Company was acquired by

Guinness Guinness () is a stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at Guinness Brewery, St. James's Gate, Dublin, Ireland, in the 18th century. It is now owned by the British-based Multinational corporation, multinational alcoholic bever ...

in 1986. Guinness merged with

Grand Metropolitan Grand Metropolitan plc was a leisure, manufacturing and property conglomerate headquartered in England. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it merged with Guinness plc to form ...

to form

in 1997.

Production

Lagavulin is known for its producer's use of a slow distillation speed and pear shaped

pot still A pot still is a type of distillation apparatus or still used to distill liquors such as whisky or brandy. In modern (post-1850s) practice, they are not used to produce rectified spirit, because they do not separate congeners from ethanol as ...

s. The two wash stills have a capacity of and the two spirit stills of each.

Managers

*Murdoch McEwan 1925–1945 *Jack Wilson circa 1974 *Neil Gillies, 1975–1980 *Ian Marland, 1980–1983 *Alistair Robertson, 1984–1988 *Grant Carmichael, 1988–1995 *Mike Nicolson, 1995–October 1998 *Donald Renwick, 1998–2005 *John Thomson, 2005–2006 *Graham Logie, 2006–2008 *Peter Campbell, 2008–2010 *Georgie Crawford, 2010–2018 *Colin Gordon, 2018–2020 *Pierrick Guillaume, 2020–2022 *Jordan Paisley, 2022–

Accolades

Lagavulin Single Islay Malt Whisky 16 years old

International

spirits ratings With a growing number of offerings, such as those produced by an increasing number of microdistilleries, various mechanisms have arisen to provide reviews and opinions of individual varieties of spirits. These events generally use expert panels a ...

competitions have generally given Lagavulin's 16-year spirit extremely high scores. The

San Francisco World Spirits Competition The San Francisco World Spirits Competition was founded in 2001 by Anthony Dias Blue as an off-shoot of the San Francisco International Wine Competition. It assesses hundreds of entrants annually (1,407 in 2013 from 63 countries) with tastings i ...

, for instance, gave the 16-year four consecutive double gold medals between 2005 and 2008 and has awarded it gold medals in the years since. ''

Wine Enthusiast Magazine Wine Enthusiast Companies is a New York based company that engages in the wine, e-commerce, information, education, events, media, and travel markets.Covel, Simona, ''The Wall Street Journal'' (October 2, 2008)Wine Enthusiast Looks to Win Over ...

'' put the 16-year in its 90–95 point interval in 2004. Spirits ratings aggregator ''proof66.com'', which averages scores from the San Francisco Spirits Competition, ''Wine Enthusiast'', and others, classifies the spirit in its highest ("Tier 1") performance category.

Cultural references

Michael Schur Michael Herbert Schur (born October 29, 1975) is an American television writer, producer, director, and actor. He started his career as a writer for ''Saturday Night Live'' (1998–2004) before gaining acclaim as a writer and producer of the si ...

, co-creator of

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

's '' Parks and Recreation '' made Lagavulin the drink of choice of character

Ron Swanson Ronald Ulysses Swanson is a fictional character portrayed by Nick Offerman in the political satire sitcom '' Parks and Recreation''. The character was created by Michael Schur and Greg Daniels with inspiration from a real-life Libertarian ele ...

(

Nick Offerman Nicholas David Offerman (born June 26, 1970) is an American actor. He became widely known for his role as Ron Swanson in the NBC sitcom '' Parks and Recreation'' (2009–2015), for which he received the Television Critics Association Award fo ...

), featuring it throughout the series. ** The Lagavulin distillery was featured in the two-part opening episode of the show's sixth season, titled "London." ** 51 % of The Lagavulin distillery was bought by Ron Swanson in the last episode of the show's seventh season, titled "One Last Ride." ** Following the series, Offerman appeared in several commercials for the product and Lagavulin issued an Offerman edition. * In

The West Wing ''The West Wing'' is an American political drama television series created by Aaron Sorkin that was originally broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1999, to May 14, 2006. The series is set primarily in the West Wing of the White House, where t ...

(season 3, episode 15, titled ' Dead Irish Writers'), Lagavulin was featured as the drink of choice of Lord John Marbury (

Roger Rees Roger Rees (5 May 1944 – 10 July 2015) was a Welsh-American actor and director. He won an Olivier Award and a Tony Award for his performance as the lead in ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (play), The Life and Adventures of Nicho ...

). * Lagavulin 16 was offered to the character Lionel Toussaint (

Leslie Odom Jr. Leslie Lloyd Odom Jr. (; born August 6, 1981) is an American actor, singer and songwriter. He made his acting debut on Broadway in 1998 and first gained recognition for his portrayal of Aaron Burr in the musical ''Hamilton'', which earned him ...

) as his preferred drink in '' Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery''. *Lagavulin is mentioned as the preferred drink of

DC Comics DC Comics (originally DC Comics, Inc., and also known simply as DC) is an American comic book publisher owned by DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book seri ...

supervillain

Lex Luthor Alexander "Lex" Joseph Luthor () is a supervillain in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the character first appeared in ''Action Comics'' #23 (published on February 22, 1940, with a cover d ...

in the series finale of

Titans In Greek mythology, the Titans ( ; ) were the pre-Twelve Olympians, Olympian gods. According to the ''Theogony'' of Hesiod, they were the twelve children of the primordial parents Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). The six male ...

. * Lagavulin is mentioned as the favorite scotch of Bruno Correges, the title character in Martin Walker's "Bruno, Chief of Police" mystery novels. * Lagavulin is ordered by Lisbeth Salander in a bar in Gibraltar near the end of the book, " The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest ". She tastes it, then asks for something that could not be used to tar a boat and returns to

Tullamore Dew Tullamore Dew, rendered in most branding as Tullamore D.E.W. (typically with the dots de-emphasised using colour and font size), is a brand of Irish whiskey produced by William Grant & Sons. It is the second-largest-selling brand of Irish whi ...

. * A glass of Lagavulin is purchased by Chrisjen Avasarala for Admiral Souther in Season 2, Episode 2 of

The Expanse Expanse or The Expanse may refer to: Media and entertainment ''The Expanse'' franchise * ''The Expanse'' (novel series), a series of science fiction novels by James S. A. Corey * ''The Expanse'' (TV series), a television adaptation of the ...

. She does so by turning to the bartender and saying "get him a proper Scotch please, Lagavulin." This means that Lagavulin remains a high-end Scotch at least until the year 2350. * In The Rose Well Files by David Luddington, Lagavulin whisky is used to entice Wilderness Jack into unknowingly participating in a scheme to stage fake alien spaceship sightings over the Rose Well Holiday Park as part of a plan to increase public interest and boost bookings.

References