Review 256. Was I wrong about Lagg?

First impressions go a long way. But they are only just that: first impressions...

There are quite a few things to be said about Arran’s (recent) whisky history. For starters, how, after there being no (official) whisky activity at all since the mid-19^th Century, the initial Arran distillery (now Lochranza) came to be. In the mid-nineties, when the industry had just started to show the first signs of  crawling back from a serious slump following the whisky loch from a decade earlier, probably the least sensible thing to do was to build a brand new one. After all, dozens of distilleries had been closed, mothballed or even demolished in recent years, so even fathoming the idea of starting a brand new distillery, at a location that hadn’t seen any whisky activity for roughly 150 years, would probably have been regarded as ‘certifiable’. But then again, the man with the masterplan was Harold Currie, a former director of Chivas, so fair to say he knew what he was doing.

So almost against the odds, a new distillery is exactly what happened on the Isle of Arran. Funded by private investors and by selling bonds, Arran first started distilling spirit in 1995. Although, it has to be said, the initial idea was to build a distillery catering to the blend market, it seems the concept of producing an Arran single malt wasn’t even considered. Not properly any way. And while today widely regarded as a success story, it took a while to get there, as Arran didn’t became profitable until about 2010. What probably saved them during those first 15 years, is the fact that they were (and are) privately owned. Imagine a company under corporate ownership, or going public on the stock exchange, making a loss 15 years in a row. Chances are it would’ve been through before it even started.

To say Lochranza has been a bet that eventually paid off, is a bit of an understatement. It has since become  one of Scotland’s most visited distilleries (if not THE most visited) and to keep up with demand (after becoming profitable, things started moving fast, eg. they managed to double their sales volume to well over 600,000 bottles a year between 2016 and 2022), eventually a decision needed to be made. In order to keep on making both unpeated and peated spirit, production capacity needed to be increased, as it simply couldn’t keep up anymore. Rather than going for the  - obvious – capacity increase of the existing distillery, they searched for a suitable new location, found one (far more to the south of the island) and built a brand new distillery, Lagg, which would exclusively be making peated spirit. This was back in 2017 and, unlike other distilleries that take years and years of planning and developing,  in about two years’ time, Lagg distillery was planned, commissioned, approved, built and taken in operation in March of 2019. This time, the timing seemed to be much more  on point with the ‘Zeitgeist’ and in line with many other things happening in the whisky industry. What makes it even more remarkable, is how Lagg came to be not because of ‘opportunity’, riding the wave of the whisky boom, but out of necessity – facing the dilemma of what to do in order to maintain what you’ve been doing for the past 25 odd years. During the covid pandemic and the years immediately after that, there was a craving for whisky, and new distilleries in particular not just seized the momentum, but rode that wave like full-fledged surfing legends. I can’t help but feel as if Lagg had the goddess of serendipity smiling on them, as it was indeed built out of necessity but  came along at exactly the right time.

Lagg hand bottled distillery exclusive (batch 5, 50 ppm, August 2024), 4 yo. 61.1% ABV

Despite Lochranza now being well established and held in high regard (their 10 yo bagged several OSWA’s, both for best budget malt and for best whisky), I took my sweet time to fully embrace their products.

Yes, there was the much loved an dearly missed Arran 14 yo, but overall I kind of feel that for every excellent Arran (the Barrel Reserve is a delightful, super budget friendly easy sipper and probably all too often overlooked), there is another one I’m not really getting along with.  I was (and still am) a bit on the fence when talking about some of their NAS cask finish series, but the continued praise that befell their 10 yo did encouraged me to revisit it after first finding the previous 10 yo a bit lacking in balance. Suffice to say I now get it. Just to illustrate how Arran / Lochranza is not always, yet perhaps should be,  top of mind for me when I go out bottle chasing.

So it was probably written in the stars that my first encounter with its sister distillery, would have me going full Vicky Pollard, leaving me with a bit of a ‘yeah-but-no-but-yeah feeling. The Corriecravie I found busy and full of flavour, but also somewhat unbalanced, and lacking depth, and given the RRP of around for what was then 4 year old whisky, it immediately put them on the ‘try before you buy’ list. Luckily, there are so many wonderful whisky folk in our community that I was indeed given the chance to try before I buy. Shoutout to the gentleman that is Nic (whisky 101), as he very generously provided me with a sample, straight from the distillery, which he visited in the summer of 2024.

Nose

Lush! Rich fruit notes of dates, figs, plums, (toffee) apples and raspberries. A gentle smokiness with equally gentle-sweet, heathery and earthy peat ties everything together. Flawless, and indeed very lovely. Adding a drop of water brings out the fruit notes even more, in the shape of apple and pear syrup mixed in with sweet smokiness.

Palate

The ABV doesn’t hit immediately, but allows just enough space for a warm, rich, fruity arrival. Than that 61.1% alcohol comes marching in, and why quite bold and hefty, it also didn’t ‘bite’ me as much as I would’ve expected. Rather it adds a feisty, yet also short-lived peppery element, which in turn hastens to make way for a now much more clear and upfront ashy smoke note. The mouthfeel is dense. Really dense even. Not so much viscous but downright syrupy even. With the added water everything becomes a bit more ‘integrated’, making for a lovely ‘whole’ of dense fruit and pronounced smoke, but it also makes it all a bit more ‘abstract’ and less defined.

Finish

Long, ashy-smoky with a gentle fruity echo to counter things.

Final thoughts

Like the official Corriecravie release this too packs a lot of flavour. Quite amazing for a 4 year old ‘toddler’ of a whisky, as this is just so big, bold and rich. I don’t know if it’s down to the extra ABV, or that this is just a similar, yet different animal than the core range (both being 4 yo), but this adds balance and depth to the party, there were I found the Corriecravie to be a bit unbalanced and superficial. Whatever it is I am very happy to be proven wrong (again, I’ll add). That said, as I go and shout it from the rooftops just how great this is, please keep in mind this is a distillery exclusive, cask strength expression and therefore perhaps not 100% representative of what is being offered through their general releases. Obviously that takes absolutely nothing away from this particular whisky, which, quite frankly, is very, very good indeed!