Lagg Inaugural Release Whisky Review - Plus a Bonus!

The first whisky release from the Isle of Arran's newest distillery and the island's second legal distillery; Lagg. Despite being bottled nearly three years ago now, this is my first Lagg!

Lagg Distillery is the second distillery, and the newest, on the Isle of Arran in the west of Scotland, around a 2.5-hour drive & ferry trip south-west from Glasgow. Like most of the Scottish islands Arran was home to a lot of illicit (illegal) distillation in the past, and the island's last legal distillery operated from 1825 to 1837. Arran Distillery opened in 1995 in Lochranza near the Island's northern coast, backed by a private consortium including a former Chivas Bros. executive. That northern Arran distillery is now known as Lochranza - but their whisky is still branded as Arran - after the same company built a second distillery in Lagg on the southern side of the island, around a 30-minute drive from the island's main town of Brodick. Lagg Distillery is located near the site of that last legal distillery which closed in 1837, and was always intended to only produce peated whisky, where the Lochranza distillery would switch to only produce unpeated whisky after initially producing both unpeated and peated spirit - the latter was sold under the "Machrie Moor" brand. Interestingly despite the two distilleries only being twenty miles apart, Lagg is officially in the Lowlands whisky region, while Lochranza / Arran Distillery is in the Highlands region, since Lagg is below the 'Highland line'. But both distilleries are on an island, and the Scottish islands are considered part of the Highlands region, but Arran isn't part of the Hebridean islands since it sits in-between the Kintyre Peninsula and the mainland. So Lagg is the only Lowland distillery located on an island, and the only non-Islay island distillery that is not in the Highland whisky region. Not confusing at all! 

Lagg Distillery has a production capacity of around 750,000-litres of spirit per year, mainly peated to 50 ppm using malted barley sourced from the mainland, although there have been experiments using both lower and higher peating levels. There are four wooden washbacks employing a fermentation period of 72-hours, and distillation takes place in a 10,000-litre wash still and 7,000-litre spirit still, and maturation is in a variety of cask types but principally ex-bourbon, which are matured in both dunnage and modern palletised warehouses on the island. All expressions are non-chill filtered and natural colour. Once Lagg's single malt came of age in mid-late 2022 there were three initial releases, with Batch 1 being matured in ex-bourbon casks, Batch 2 being matured in ex-bourbon and finished in small ex-sherry casks, and Batch 3 being matured in ex-bourbon and finished in small ex-red wine casks. All three bottlings were 3-years of age and bottled at 50% ABV, with 10,000 bottles of each released. Following those inaugural releases hit the shelves in late 2022 two core range whiskies were launched; The ex-bourbon matured 'Kilmory Edition', and the Oloroso sherry finished 'Corriecravie Edition'. Both are named after local landmarks. Other than that, the distillery seems to have been relatively quiet, and the inaugural releases are still readily available here in Australia, at around $200 AUD. That's a steep price for a 3-year old with 10,000 bottles released, even at 50% ABV, which is probably why it's still available today. It's still available from the distillery's own website as well, three years after release, for £75, which is around $160 AUD - so with shipping and duties $200 sounds about right in comparison. Also sounds about $20-30 too much, though... Let's find out!

 

Lagg Inaugural Release, NAS (but 3-years old), 50% ABV. Isle of Arran, Scotland.

Heavily peated 50 ppm, distilled 2019, matured in ex-bourbon barrels, bottled September 2022. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Pale gold. 

Nose: Herbal, smoky, grassy. Bitter orange, hay, wet barley, caramel sauce, grassy wood smoke. Lemon-flavoured white chocolate. Dry earthy peat, a little peppermint, fresh flowers, and a touch of beeswax around the edges. 

Texture: Light weight. Peaty, youthful, zesty. Touch of heat. 

Taste: Oily & sweet entry, big chunky earthy peat, black pepper, touch of disinfectant. Caramel sauce, bit of ginger, and malt vinegar. Maybe even salt & vinegar potato chips?

Finish: Medium length. That chunky peat carries through, with some black pepper and tar underneath. Some hints of vanilla caramel syrup, cocktail onions, dried herbs & dried flowers around the edges. 

Score: 3 out of 5. 

Notes: It's youthful and quite straightforward, and without the peat to cover it there might've been more heat & rawness to contend with. But we already knew that going in! The youth shows in the thinness on the palate, and the only thing of note in the finish is the peatiness, which is the dominant force throughout this dram. But again, that's to be expected, it's a 3-year old first release! The cask influence does seem very light in comparison to other "modern" ex-bourbon cask inaugural releases, but I'm sure that's intentional to keep the peat influence intact. The other two batches, wine cask & sherry cask respectively, can take care of the rest. It'll be interesting to see where Lagg goes from here, they certainly seem to be relatively quiet compared to most of the "new breed". Maybe they're waiting for more stock to hit maturity? Time will tell!

And the bonus for this review... A distillery exclusive from the original Arran, now known as Lochranza. This is an Arran single cask released way back in 2015! This bottle was a recent auction win that piqued my curiosity, partly because it was a distillery exclusive from ten years ago, but mostly because it was fully matured in a Spanish oak Fino sherry butt and bottled at a cask strength of 58.7%, non-chill filtered and natural colour. Fino sherry casks are growing in popularity but still aren't particularly common, even less so ten years ago when this one was bottled. They are quite divisive as a cask type (as is the dry, yeasty, and salty Fino sherry itself), although in my experience they can work very well - admittedly most of that experience is with peated malt whisky, which this Arran is not. Adding to my curiosity, after I had placed the winning bid I mentioned it to a mate of mine who decided to tell me that he had bought a bottle locally back in the day, and that he'd found it almost undrinkable back then. Since it was too late to do anything about the purchase, I'm choosing to take that as a challenge! It seems that Arran's Australian importer at the time was able to get the distillery to send some of these distillery exclusive bottles over, even going to the trouble of having the Distillery Manager, James MacTaggart who joined the distillery in 2007 and retired in 2022, sign the bottles before they were shipped. Said importer still has this bottle listed on their website - long sold out of course - for $220 AUD, which means that after auction fees I saved a whopping $6 off the original retail price... At least that original price was from almost a decade ago!

As mentioned above, the original Arran Distillery is now known as Lochranza Distillery, but their single malt is still branded as Arran. Since Lagg Distillery opened in 2019 the Lochranza site has switched to 100% unpeated production, with a production capacity of around 1.2-million litres per year after a second pair of stills were added in 2017. Actual production is reportedly around 800,000-litres per year. Obviously this Fino sherry cask matured distillery exclusive pre-dates all of that, including the Arran packaging update that happened in 2019. Let's see how it goes!

Arran Fino Sherry Matured, NAS, 58.7%. Isle of Arran, Scotland.

Distillery exclusive, bottled 2015. Fully matured in Spanish oak ex-Fino sherry cask, 308 bottles. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Copper. 

Nose: Rich, sweet, salty, fruity. Rock salt, rich chewy toffee, thick sultana syrup. Baked nectarines, thick honey, sweet glace (candied) cherries, sugared almonds, sourdough bread, and freshly sawn wood. Bitter orange peel, lemon drops, hint of fresh flowers. 

Texture: Medium-heavy weight. Rich, chewy, sweet & fruity. Slight heat but carries it well. 

Taste: Rich sweet entry with sultanas in syrup, sweet glace cherries, sugared almonds, and sweet pastry - Bakewell tarts, anyone? Some white pepper, fresh flowers, and lemon drops underneath. Some sweetened tea, and cinnamon sugar around the edges. 

Finish: Long length. Sweet juicy sultanas, glace cherries, white pepper, and rock salt carry through. Sweetened tea, sweet flowers, sugared almonds, lemon drops, and baked nectarines with honey. Hints of tropical fruit and rich tea biscuits to finish. 

Score: 4 out of 5. 

Notes: Delicious dram, very rich & very tasty. You'll have to like sultanas, sherry, and maybe Bakewell tarts; but who doesn't? This is a very different whisky to the other Arrans that I've tried so far, even those bottled around the same time, and it's my clear favourite whisky from the distillery. The fino sherry influence is front & centre, but it's worked very well with the Spanish oak and the Arran spirit, giving a sweet & rich dessert whisky that is quite moreish. That's not exactly what I expected from a fino sherry cask, being a dry, yeasty, salty sherry, but I've had a Deanston fino cask matured (Union Exclusive or something like that) which had a similar profile, so maybe certain unpeated whiskies in fino casks at the right age can give this sort of result. Regardless, it's worked. The auction gamble paid off!

Cheers!