#feisile

[whiskyaesthetic]

Unmistakably Laphroaig on the nose with a side of floral bouquet. This one is sweet - more vanilla than honey. The combination of port and red wine mean there are a lot of flavors to unpack. Well done @laphroaig, well done. Laphroaig Cairdeas Port & Wine Casks (2020) 52% ABV, No Age Statement Casks: Second-fill Ruby Port barriques, ex-bourbon finished in red wine Region: Islay . . . #laphroaig #cairdeas #feisile #islay #peat #portfinished #redwinefinished #rubyport #barriques #friendsoflaphroaig #singlemalt #scotch #whisky #whiskey #aquavitae #uiscebeatha #uisgebeatha #whiskyaesthetic #womenwhowhiskey https://www.instagram.com/p/COrEf9fsU6R/?igshid=10f1atfhy5mrs

[wildandmagic]

Tasting notes to be done today....it's a hard life! Thanks to boss man James Brown for kindly sharing a couple of bottles from two private single casks. You can taste these drams in the official Feis Ile Whisky Tasting hosted by myself in the Gaelic College on Wednesday 30th at 7.30pm. I hope you have tickets already as it is now sold out😎 #FeisIle #Whisky #Tasting #IslayWhiskyConnection #IslayWhiskyAcademy #ScotchTalk #Octomore #Privatecask #Slainte ! (at Islay Whisky Connection)

[whiskyadventures]

#Bunnahabhain #FeisIle 2017 #Port Cask #Islay #SingleMalt #Scotch #Whisky #Whiskey (at Lunawanna)

[juliette-whisky-geek-blog]

Date night with Finlaggen Feis Ile 2016 😍😍😍 • Aged in Ex-Bourbon • 10 years old • bottled at 50% 🤤🤤🤤 Nose: vanilla, mint, cut grass, peat smoke, giranium, floral, chlorine Palate: yowza!!!! Oily, filthy yet clean, orchard fruits, crisp and sweet, huge spice on the mid palate, finishes off minty and leafy. A clean crisp whisky!! This is lovely!!! Absolutely adored this!!! Thank you Finlaggen 🙏🏻🙏🏻 I think I know which whisky this is but I can’t tell you! Maybe you can enlighten me? #whisky #whiskyagogo #whiskyporn #whiskylover #whiskytasting #whiskylife #whiskyreview #whiskygram #whiskylove #islay #islaywhisky #islaysinglemalt #smoke #peat #scotch #singlemalt #alchohol #drink #dram #feisile #whiskey #whiskyporn https://www.instagram.com/p/B2MyuRqgomg/?igshid=8fvit3qotd61

[thewhiskyadvisor]

Islay is one of the 5 designated Scotch whisky regions. This small 600 sq.km island of just over 3000 inhabitants is home to some of the most iconic whiskies in the world of Scotch whisky, Laphraoig for example. How did such a tiny island off the southern Scottish coast end up with so many distilleries? It is believed that Irish monks introduced distilling to Islay back in the early 1400s. Being fairly remote, farmers on the island found distilling to be a good way to preserve their crops. Further, when the rest of Scotlands distillers were hiding in glens and coves from the notorious exciseman, these very men had no inclination to travel far to this island. This led to a burgeoning distilling culture. At its peak, Islay boasted of 23 functioning distilleries. Bowmore is the oldest distillery on the island dating back to 1779. Islay now has 9 functioning distilleries, with Ardnahoe being the youngest, having started distillation as recently as October 2018. The first thing that comes to ones mind when Islay is mentioned is Peaty whisky. As we've seen in past posts, peat was the fuel of choice to dry germinating barley during the malting process. The aroma of Islay peat is very different from highland peat in that it is more medicinal, tarry, iodine and burnt rubber like. In this series we will explore the distilleries of Islay, Queen of the Hebrides. @laphroaig @bowmore @bunnahabhain @ardnahoedistillery @bowmore @bruichladdich @ardbeg @lagavulinwhisky @kilchomanwhisky #islaywhisky #islay #feisile #thewhiskyadvisor #worldwhiskytours #scotchwhisky #whisky (at Islay) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx4wsh3nzf4/?igshid=xsbmc8b69y2p

[indawhiskyclub-blog]

Dreaming of a dram? I was lucky enough to taste my first Port Ellen at the whiskyexchange pop up bar at the Ramsey Hall, Port Ellen at this years Islay Feis Ile. At £15 for a 10ml taster, it was a bit of a pricey dram but after many years of visiting the island I couldn’t pass up the chance. Delicious!

[whiskycast]

Wish I could be on Islay for this week's #FeisIle, but did the next best thing! Our 2010 series of 10 shows from the Islay Festival are among the most-popular WhiskyCast episodes ever, so we've collected them on one page along with some never-published photos from the trip. Have a look at https://whiskycast.com/the-feis-ile-series/!

[thebowmorehouse]

@robertgraham.1874 welcome to @thebowmorehouse for their first #islay #whisky tasting #feisile (at The Bowmore House on Islay)

[eagunn]

#tbt the rather brooding view from Caol Ila Distillery at last years Feis Ile. Cheers to everyone who visited this year! #lovescotch #scotch #whisky #feisile #feisile2017 #diageo #caolila #lagavulin #islay #islayfestival #lifeatdiageo (at Caol Ila distillery)

[worldwinewhisky-blog]

It's World Whisky Day 2017 today! Let's raise your glass, slàinte mhath! 🥃🤗 #Worldwinewhisky #worldwhiskyday #worldwhiskyday2017 #whisky #Lagavulin #feisile #Amsterdam #grachten #amsterdamcanals #oudeschans #whiskey #uniquewhisky #rarewhisky #exclusive (bij Oudeschans)

[amateurdrammer-blog]

Press release: Diageo announces its Feis bottlings for 2017. The Lagavulin Festival bottling has been double matured in Moscatel Cask wood. Bottled at natural cask strength, it will be a limited edition run of 6,000 bottles. ABV 55.8%, RRP £125 Caol Ila 12 Year Old The Caol Ila bottling has been double matured in Amoroso Cask wood. Bottled at natural cask strength, with a limited edition run of 1,500 bottles. ABV 56.1%, RRP £99. #feisile #islay #lagavulin #caolila #whisky #amateurdrammer #pressrelease #whiskyporn http://ift.tt/2rYZS6d

[wildandmagic]

Directions for Bruichladdich Open Day. #FeisIle Slàinte!

[whiskyadventures]

Tonight's #dram... #Lagavulin #FeisIle 2016 18 year old at 49.5% abv. Refill #Bourbon Casks and European Oak #Sherry Casks. Bottle number 6. Peat, shredded wheat, bacon, tar, old rope, Arbroath smokies, hospitals, eucalyptus, cinnamon, ozone, sweet oranges and hazelnuts. Mind blowing! #Islay #SingleMalt #Scotch #Whisky #Whiskey

[watercolourwhisky]

The Lagavulin 2015 Feis Ile (24 Year Old, Bottle #122)

The Lagavulin 2015 (Feis Ile 24 Year Old, Bottle #122) is the greatest whisky I've ever had. If I were to try and describe the sensory experience (which is kind of the point of these reviews), it's like being wrapped in a blanket by a campfire on a beach while drinking the blackest espresso and smoking a cigar dipped in maple syrup. Oh, and your blanket is on fire.

So. Wow. How did we get here?

Harken back with me, if you will, to the magical summer of June 2015. As a second time new British migrant*, I inaugurated my return** to Great Britland by attending Feis Ile, AKA The Islay Festival, AKA the run on the various Islay Co-Ops’ deodorant supplies. It's the time of year when hordes of whisky nerds (and me, who is obviously a whisky jock***, even though 2/5ths of my reviews contain Star Wars references) descend on the tiny Western Scottish island of Islay, home to some of the world's most renowned distilleries; when the island's population swells from 3,000 to 14,000, and each day holds a festival at one of the island's eight distilleries****.

Every year for the past decadish, each distillery on the island has released a special limited edition Feis Ile bottling, which are notorious for being a) expensive, and then b) doubling in price on auction sites the next day.You may recall I reviewed the Caol Ile's 2015 Feis Ile limited release last year, which was a spritely 17 year old.Here we are again, but this time we're looking at Lagavulin's Feis Ile bottling, AKA the greatest whisky in the world.

So. I went to Lagavulin. It was neat.

I bought the Lagavulin 2015 Feis Ile (24 Year Old).To throw some numbers at you, the 3500 bottles of Lagavulin Feis Ile 2015 (24 year old) sold for £128 each. It recently went for £440 at auction. That's now £20 a dram, cost. Then again, the 8,000 200th anniversary Lagavulin 25 year old bottles, released this year, retailed at £799.95. Though I own many fine whiskies and I've tasted some finer ones still, I've never personally opened a bottle that's worth more than ��80. If you're going to beat a personal best, you may as well do it five times over.

Now, I formally arrived on this planet on June 24, and kind of consider base two numbers my jam. As such, I figured my 32nd birthday was a suitable occasion to crack open this bad boy/girl/biologicaldeterminismisrubbish.

You can see me here on the morning of my 32nd birthday, quite enjoying myself, with an Aberdeen Angus steak bap and a Lagavulin 24 year old for breakfast.

It was a good day.

Over the next six months, this bottle went on many adventures. I took it up on a whirlwind tour of Scotland, painting it on the train ride up.

At one point, it even went to Australia.

Now, being a 32-and-a-half-year-old-cynical-atheist who nonetheless enjoys the poetic symbolism of numerology, I thought it would be fitting to finish off this glorious 24 year old whisky, opened on 24/6/16, six months later, on 24/12/16 . So here we are, on Christmas Eve 2016, finishing a bottle of the nicest whisky I've ever tasted.

So, after perhaps the longest winded intro I've ever embarked on, how do we begin to approach this leviathan-slash-titan of a single malt, whose majesty spans from the loftiest heavens to the greatest oceans' depths?

How ‘bout the nose?

Well. 

Let me tell you, friend: whapp your schnoz into a glass of the Lagavulin Feis Ile 2015 (24 Year Old) and you're taking a hit. The alcoholic notes smash you: a dazzling burst of starlight; an arctic blast of alcohol that overpowers all (59.9%, baby!). It takes a second for your nose to adjust to this new world order, before you begin to regain your senses. Complex plastic polymers emerge: synthetic carpet laid down a long corridor; the enticing aroma of a new car. It's part futuristic, but these chemical pings are equalled in part by fragrances meatier and more natural. There's the call of the sea; a campfire on the beach next to a shipwreck. Newly tanned leathers beckon. Rotting books. The experience, however, is not musty and stale, but vibrant.

A third, surprising body of notes rounds out this complex nose. You uncover fresh cereals: wet barley, hay. Each of these three groupings dance a complex dance (once the alcohol has taken out the weaker receptors.) It's complex, it's dynamic, and it's beautiful.

What you notice, as you mull it over, is that the heat and smoke is mostly absent from the nose. It's not particularly peaty.

Ha.

Ahahahaahahahahahah.

Time for the taste.

PHWOAR! Phucking phwoar. 

Remember that moment in El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)*** where homeboy's tongue touches the Guatemalan Insanity Pepper?

That.

Fire. 

Burning. Roaring, aggressive. A thousand hornet stings. The taste kicks off with a riotous burst of heat. It's hard to get a handle on much else - the more it settles, counterintuitively, the stronger it gets. For a few seconds, your senses are overwhelmed. There's a taunt of sweetness, a suggestion of complexity, but then BAM! All you can do is strap yourself in and ride it out.

Once you do, however…

Wow.

You're seeing amorphous blobs of light, which gradually begin to coalesce back into stars. You start to remember details. Your name. What year it is. That time Buffy whapped out a rocket launcher to defeat The Judge. The important things.

From there, you get to savour the complex, delicate, shifting, orchestral finish of the Lagavulin Feis Ile 2015. 

And what melody does it play?

Well, characteristically, it's like other Lagavulins - deep and lingering, but not oily or heavy. It's the Muhammad Ali of the single malt whisky world, with the butterflies, and the bees*****.

On the finish there's tar, and chewing tobacco. There's the deepest roasted coffee, and lamb fat that's been left in the pan and charred to a crisp. It's a chocolate darker than any you've ever had. 

There's an undeniable sweetness - honeycomb, but it's so deep. It's chewy, burnt caramel embers.

This is a whisky you're chewing and savouring. Where some of the nicest whiskies I've mulled over provided a finish that stayed with me for 40, 50 seconds. This one has a finish measured in minutes. This is a lingering memory, and not one you're soon likely to forget…

So.

That was… pleasant. Where to from here?

Well, I guess you could fork out £800 for the 25 Year Old. But then, when the revolution comes, we're totes eating you, you rich, capitalistic fuck. £800 is an idiotic amount to spend on a whisky, and this younger sibling, despite it having erotically assaulted my tastebuds, is not worth the equivalent of a return flight to Australia. I think, if this were genuinely available for £200, I'd consider another bottle. But it's not. £130 was a great price to pay for this wonder. I'm kicking myself that when I went back to the distillery the next day, and they still had bottles available, and I didn't get extra. Alas, now that I've finished this magnificent bottle... I've only got one bottle left. I think I'll save it for my 48th. Merry Christmas, y'all, and happy 32nd-and-a-half birthday to me.

- McBetts

Try it if you like: whisky, all that is good in the world

Avoid it if you dislike: N/A

*Having migrated the first time, all too temporarily, to Glasgow. **Yes, you can inaugurate a return. Your English means nothing here in... England. ***Am I inadvertently invoking some sort of horiffic sectarian/racist honorific with the phrase “whisky jock”? ****And Jura. Poor Jura. But that’s a story for another time. #Corryvreckan #TruthToPower *****It would be much less weird if butterflies and bees had sex, rather than bees and birds.

[patsychristie]

An amazing tasting including #Islay Festival #FeisIle bottlings at #CaolIla. The unpeated Caol Ilas impressed me the most ... sacrilege I know! (at Caol Ila distillery)

[whiskylyf]

There's a little bit of Feis Ile in Australia, and it is delicious #lagavulin #singlemalt #whisky #feisile #whiskytimes #whiskylyf (at Whisky & Alement)