Lagavulin 12yo (1980s bottling) (43.0%): A few months ago one of my colleagues walked into my room with this mini in his hand saying: "Hey, look what I found at home... I don't know if it is any good but I thought it might interest you.." I almost burst my coffee in his face. It is a Lagavulin 12yo from 1980s carrying a White Horse Distillers Ltd. label. I really hope that the whisky is still in good shape since the bottle was open for a long time and a sizable amount of the liquid is missing. According to my colleague after being tasted many years ago it was returned back immediately to the cabinet because it was too "strong" to drink. I simply cannot wait...Color: Dark amber, bourbon-like with thin legs. It is actually suspiciously dark suggesting a very hefty dose of caramel coloring.
Nose: Hints of serious oxidation: Wet cardboard boxes, stainless steel Sigg water bottles and damp gardening soil. Cooked raisins and Zante currants... Beef stew, rotting salad mix forgotten in your fridge and very old brandy. Hint of peat but way back in the distance.
Palate: Unfortunately oxygen did its work... Long gone. Mostly old newspapers, plastic food containers and harsh mouth covering alcohol. Very hard to believe that I am tasting something 43% abv. Somehow being exposed to oxygen in so many years stripped all the other flavors and left alcohol alone in the bottle. I can tell that it is peatier on the palate than the nose suggested but the alcohol burn is so numbing it's very hard to pick anything else. Maybe some molasses, burnt caramel and raisins but even those are not so pleasant notes. Everything tastes syrupy sweet, artificial and chemical... Very sad...
Finish: Mostly sweet with molasses and burnt sugar with massive alcohol burn.
Overall: Well, very hard to hide my disappointment... The whisky is long gone. I was very excited to taste a Lagavulin from that era but it sadly didn't happen. Well, at least we know now that they were using quite an amount of caramel coloring back then as well.
Price: N/A
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