Today’s the open day of Lagavulin (Always on the first Saturday of the festival) and as usual, I’ll try to review during the festival a corresponding whisky for each of the Islay distilleries.
Instead of going for an official bottling, I’m heading the independent bottlers way and checking a young 9 Year Old Kildalton whisky from a new bottler, The Spirit Still.
The Spirit Still can’t call it Lagavulin, but the name of the whisky is a masterful stroke and it’s pretty clear which distillery does it hails from.
This whisky was matured in bourbon cask before going a second maturation for 6 months in a Côtes du Rhône French Oak cask.
The Spirit Still “Like A Villain” – Lagavulin 9 Year Old Wine Cask Finish (52%)
Nose: Feeling the youth with earthy malt and vanilla so not too active a cask. then a generous layer of stewed apricot and cinnamon. Sourness and freshness of lemon peels a drizzle of seawater. Continue reading
Nose: Sweet brown sugar, quite hard to nose with that ABV but after letting it rest in the glass for a few minutes there’s also toasted wood, plastical sweetness. Have to add some water and then it’s magical: there’s finally complexity and depth (not on Mariana Trench level tho), far less plastic relaxed sweetness, lots of brown and demerara sugar, crushed blueberry and cranberries, perfumey edge.
Nose: Sweet wood and raisins, almost sherry like. Then there’s that Caroni dirtiness, tar, diesel oil fumes, salted fishes, black olives, brown sugar, toasted oak and sweet burnt plastic. 
Nose: Mellow nose but it does have a heavy dpose of earthy peat smoke at first, fruity with lemon, grapefruit, pineapple, green papaya and a bit of honey, sprinkled with a pinch of salt, After a few minutes less peat smoke and stronger fruitiness. 
Nose: Crisp and well defined, sweet vanilla, sweet peat, It’s sweet but it’s not cloying or a dominating sweetness. Instead it’s more like gentle cake sugar icing sweetness. No smoke so far, but it does gets fruity after a few minutes: apricots with hints of floral perfume . With a few drops of water it’s on a new level of fruitiness with more apricots, green mango and papaya and becomes more perfumey. 
Nose: Sour vanilla, lactic, wine tannins, cream, toffee and caramel. After a few minutes in the glass it becomes more winey and with cream, butterscotch and cinnamon. Very gentle and polished nose. 
Nose: Malt, red wine sweetness, vanilla, gentle tannins and white pepper, red berries led by raspberries and gooseberries. After a while butterscotch, nutmeg and a bit of cinnamon. 
Nose: Comparing to the 10yo, here we have more intense and deeper fruit sweetness along with stronger, almost sour, vanilla notes. Subtle smoke, peaches and apricots followed by citrus fruitiness. After a few minutes, more smoke and lactic vanilla in the background. 
Whisky Gospel 