Lagavulin Distillery

A runaway success story, Lagavulin has become world renowned as people have fallen madly in love with Islay single malts. The distillery was founded in 1816 on the south coast of Islay by John Johnston. Another distillery was built next door at around the same time, and Johnston took that over in 1825 after it had folded four years earlier. He ran both until his death in 1836.

At that point the Glasgow wine and spirits merchant Alexander Graham took over, and the following year the two distilleries merged. From then on they would operate together as Lagavulin.

In 1861 James Logan Mackie became a partner in the distillery, and later the full owner after his company took over in 1867. He carried out refurbishments of the distillery, and later passed it on to his nephew, Peter Mackie. Mackie & Co would later change its name to White Horse Distillers.

After a bitter dispute with Laphroaig ended the two distilleries’ former business arrangement, Peter Mackie tried to recreate the character of Laphroaig’s whisky. He built a new distillery named Malt Mill on the grounds of Lagavulin with this goal in mind. This shut in 1962, never quite succeeding in its goal, and now houses Lagavulin’s visitor centre.

In 1927 White Horse Distillers was bought by Distillers Company Limited, which would later become part of Diageo. They transferred Lagavulin to their subsidiary Scottish Malt Distillers three years later. The distillery was severely damaged by a fire in 1952. The floor maltings were decommissioned in 1974, and from then on malt was purchased from Port Ellen which supplies much of Islay.

Lagavulin is equipped with a 4.4 ton mash tun, ten Larch washbacks, and four stills which are filled almost completely during distillation to minimise the vapours’ copper contact. Unusually, the spirit stills are slightly larger than the wash stills. Lagavulin also practices extremely slow distillation which contributes to its spirits’ mellow character. Running 24/7, the distillery has a production capacity of 2.53 million litres of spirits a year. Water for production is drawn from Lochan Shoulum, fed by water from the hills which flows down through peat beds.

Lagavulin has a relatively small core range consisting of its storied 16 year old and the Distillers Edition. The 16 year old is dominated by peat and smoke from the first sniff to its long finish. Along with smoke, the nose contains notes of iodine, vanilla, and sherry. That sherry sweetness continues on the palate, with added spices and lots of peat and oak. The long finish contains more peat, spice, and sea salt. The Distillers Edition has been double matured in Pedro Ximenez Sherry casks to give extra intensity to the sweetness and spice.

Joining those is a Cask Strength 12 year old in the Special Releases range. Recent limited editions have included a 19 year old and an 18 year old released for the Feis Ile (Islay Festival).