When you run out of money and whisky, what do you do? Finlaggan comes to the rescue!
If you like peated whisky’s and Lagavulin in particular, Finlaggan is a must have in your cabinet. The Original for example, costs only around €20 here in the Netherlands. And if you like it cask strength, for only €10 more you’ll get this beauty. It almost sounds like an ad, but we are genuinely stoked by how good a bang for your buck this is. And as you might know, price/quality has a huge impact on our scores.
Finlaggan is an independent bottling by Vintage Malt Whisky Company, it’s not officially known from what distillery, but everything suggests that it’s young Lagavulin in the bottle. This Cask Strength version is bottled at 58% and has matured on bourbon casks. Let’s dive right into the tasting notes:
The smell of an escalator in a parking garage, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, aniseed, salted ham, ripe melon, sweet white grapes, dusty, peated barley, licorice
Smooth, pineapple, vanilla, a crescendo of dry wood and juicy flavours, pear flavoured popsicle and banana.
Fruity and fishy, a salty seabreeze, pineapple, dried apples, banana, meat, cured ham, subtle citrus and peat, honeyed licorice
It’s in no way harsh or cloggy like some original bottlings sometimes offer (mainly when sherry joins the mix, in our opinion). This whisky is fruity and lush but also down to earth and kind of predictable. What you see is what you get, and for the price: definitely a no brainer.