Finding Lagavulin
at the Edge of the World
Finding
Lagavulin
at the Edge of
the World
a storied distillery redefines single-malt Scotch.
For more than two centuries, the Lagavulin distillery has existed on Scotland’s Isle of Islay, a remote and wild destination surrounded by turbulent seas, population 3,500.
“When I first arrived on Islay as a wee girl, I fell in love straightaway,” says Charlie Baldwin, who moved here from the suburbs of Glasgow during high school and now works as a guide at Lagavulin. “There’s something about hearing the waves crashing outside your bedroom window that is very special.”
Generations ago, during an era when the whisky industry remained secretive about its production methods, workers at Lagavulin would gruffly shoo strangers away. But over the last 10 to 15 years, whisky on Islay has experienced a rebirth. Visitors arrive year-round. Old, shuttered distilleries, called “ghosts,” have reopened, new ones are being built — and they’re both being staffed with younger employees, not to mention more women. Even the way to drink the spirit has evolved.
Baldwin became interested in whisky culture after seeing connoisseurs make pilgrimages to the island, some sporting Lagavulin tattoos. “I wanted to see why it was such a big deal,” she says. During her job orientation four years ago, she had her first dram of Lagavulin 16-Year-Old Single Malt. Admittedly, she didn’t finish it. Later, she tried the 12-year-old, and a light bulb went off. “It was quite focused on green apples,” she says. “It was smoky, citrusy, light.”
Upstairs in the Malt Mill Bar, visitors can relax into tartan-upholstered easy chairs and tufted leather couches while sipping Lagavulin neat — and in cocktails. “People are constantly looking for new things to try,” Baldwin says. While bopping to top 40 songs, she casually mixes drinks using ingredients like coffee liqueur, vanilla syrup, and chocolate and strawberry bitters.
“There’s such a variety of visitors from all over the world — lots of special occasions, birthdays, honeymoons, bucket lists,” says Karen Robertson, Lagavulin’s experience and events manager, who grew up down the street from the distillery. Many are Lagavulin devotees, while others are new to the brand, perhaps even to Scotch itself. For the latter, “Maybe the taste of the neat whisky is too intense for them, so a cocktail is a good way to get into it,” she says. A staff favorite is the Peat & Plum, made with plum bitters and plum liqueur. “It’s not too heavy, it’s quite light and tasty,” says Emily Logan, a guide.
Baldwin compares the mixology to wine and cheese pairing. “Some call it sacrilege if you mix Lagavulin 16-year-old and cola, but it works,” she says. “It’s called a Smokey Cokey. … It’s going to help your palate access those flavors inside the drink. Lagavulin is so bold, it’s almost a shame not to accentuate those other flavors.”
In 15th-century Scotland, aqua vitae, a.k.a. the water of life, was distilled from a malt base and used during surgical procedures in the absence of anesthesia. Surgeons lobbied to make it illegal outside of medicine, so farmers began distilling the stuff at night, thus the term “moonshine.” The whisky was not aged, and it was often combined with fruit, spices, sugar, honey and/or other ingredients to make it palatable. It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that aging in oak barrels became popular and finer whiskies went into production.
“Lagavulin 16 is baseline unbelievable, so that gets us on the map and gets people in — then we can try and play around with a few different things,” says Jordan Paisley, Lagavulin’s distillery manager. The brand regularly develops new bottlings, including four limited-edition collaborations with actor and brand spokesperson Nick Offerman, and annual releases for Islay cultural events, including Fèis Ìle in May and Jazz Festival in September, which both draw thousands of visitors.
As a destination, Islay is difficult to reach but worth the trouble. Leaving Glasgow, the trip takes over five hours by car and ferry on a good day. On bad ones, it’s not uncommon for the ships to be waylaid by storms. Or for pilots to circle the island while peering into thick fog for a glimpse of a runway before flying back to the mainland. The local philosophy is pure pragmatism: Don’t look too far into the future. If the plane lands, it lands.
The peat-covered island is home to mostly agricultural laborers, whisky-makers, hospitality workers and grazing sheep. It’s a place to have a lasting affair with solitude, but where at the same time everybody knows just about everybody — and they all look out for one another.
“It’s the kind of place where people leave their doors unlocked and their keys in the car,” says Shane MacKinnon, whose family has been on the island for generations. It’s also a place where consecutive generations of the same family work for the distilleries. He’s worked as a maintenance engineer for the brand’s parent company, Diageo, for the past 11 years, and both his grandfather and great-grandfather worked at Lagavulin. “There’s a sense of belonging,” he says.
“It’s the kind of place where people leave their doors unlocked and their keys in the car,” says Shane MacKinnon, whose family has been on the island for generations. It’s also a place where consecutive generations of the same family work for the distilleries. He’s worked as a maintenance engineer for the brand’s parent company, Diageo, for the past 11 years, and both his grandfather and great-grandfather worked at Lagavulin. “There’s a sense of belonging,” he says.
Born-and-bred Ileach Donnie MacKinnon, the aforementioned grandfather, says, “I would never leave the island. I’ll be here until I’m no longer here.” He went from apprentice to production manager over the course of 42 years at Lagavulin. Donnie’s father was a boilerman at Lagavulin for half a century, shoveling coal into a furnace to steam-boil the distillation.
Born-and-bred Ileach Donnie MacKinnon, the aforementioned grandfather, says, “I would never leave the island. I’ll be here until I’m no longer here.” He went from apprentice to production manager over the course of 42 years at Lagavulin. Donnie’s father was a boilerman at Lagavulin for half a century, shoveling coal into a furnace to steam-boil the distillation.
“There were no machines at all in those days,” Donnie says. Every aspect of the whisky-making was done by hand: They used scythes to cut peat — decomposing grass, seaweed, heather all compressed into the land over the ages — out on the moors; heaved bags of wet barley from trucks up to a loft, where the contents were spread across the malting floor; and continually turned the grain using wooden shovels to impede sprouting. When the peat was fired from below to dry the barley, it imparted the unique and characteristic smokiness to Islay Scotch.
Today, the malting process is handled nearby at Port Ellen Maltings, but Lagavulin still employs its unique double-distillation process, one of the longest in Scotland, from the early 1800s. Its 16-year-old Single Malt is revered by experts, who appreciate the distinctive, rounded, subtly smoky character. If you walk into any reputable bar around the world, you are likely to find it on the top shelves.
In New York City, where expectations run high and craft cocktails can be as meticulously ingredient-focused as a diner’s main course, mixologists have defied purists who don’t believe a Single Malt should be imbibed any way other than neat.
As people move toward drinking less but drinking better, a delicate hand makes sense. Plus, a small amount can go a long way, particularly when it comes to peaty Lagavulin. For example, some bartenders opt to rinse a glass with a small pour of the spirit before building a cocktail to give it a smoky aura. Or, they finish a drink with a spray, allowing the smoky notes to hit the imbiber’s nose first and then their palate.
Recently, at one boutique cocktail bar in a former 19th-century Gramercy carriage house, the bar staff riffed on a drink inspired by elotes: corn from the farmer’s market, a sweet corn liqueur from Mexico, aged rum, maple syrup, soy sauce, Parmesan cheese and Lagavulin 16-year-old. At an opulent speakeasy hidden inside a TriBeCa hotel, one of the best sellers incorporated hand-strained watermelon, mezcal and a wash of Lagavulin 16-year-old for that extra, layered smokiness. Scotch, even if high-end, is no longer confined to one way of thinking.
For the distillery manager Paisley, “Being from Islay, we’re immersed in whisky, so it's quite nice when you actually get away to then see how other people are appreciating it. If you’ve invested your good money in the bottles, you should be able to drink it however you want.”
Paisley joined the merchant navy at 18 then traveled the world for years with various jobs, including one in maritime security (“like, anti-piracy against pirates”). And during that time abroad, he often came across a touchstone of home. “I’ve been very lucky to go to random places in Africa, and there’s a bottle of Lagavulin 16 behind the bar,” he says.
Sharing a subsequent dram, he remembers, was always a moment of connection: “I could tell them, ‘This is where I’m from.’”
Photography by Ciril Jazbec.
