The longest remaining regular bottling in the Special Releases, having only missed the first year, and the yearly fan favourite. So many people assume that Lagavulin is all like the 16 Year Old and Distillers Edition, but pull it out of cask a few years earlier and bottle it at a higher strength, and you see a totally different side of the distillery: feisty, packed with breaking waves and prickly smoke. This one is sweeter than last year’s release, a dram that Donald described as ‘like lemon meringue pie that’s been in the oven four minutes too long’. It’s matured in refill American-oak hogsheads, putting the distillery’s wilder character at its core: Nose: Singed leaves, sweet peat and damp earth – a mismanaged forest campfire after a rainstorm. Sweeter notes build, with pink shrimp sweets, joined by crashing waves and damp leather. Soft spicey notes develop, along with pine trees and a touch of lime. Palate: Chocolate-covered pine needles and leafy undergrowth. The sweetness from the nose is here too, with icing sugar and barley sugar balanced by zesty lime. Finish: Minerally and minty, with leathery smoke and sawdust touches. Comment: Definitely sweeter than I expected, but still a raw but well-balanced display of Lagavulin’s ‘other side’.