First whisky from Lagg distillery

For many years, however, neither whisky distillery operated on one of Scotland's most beautiful islands - and perhaps the most easily accessible to tourists - Arran. This state of affairs changed with the opening of the Arran distillery on the north coast of the island, in Lochranza in 1995 (work on its opening had been going on since 1993).

Another landmark year for the development of the distilling industry on the island of Arran was the launch of a second distillery, Lagg. Isle of Arran Distillers, owner of the aforementioned Lochranza distillery (which was recently renamed from Arran to Lochranza precisely), began producing whisky at the new facility in 2019. Lagg is located on the opposite southern tip of the island and produces whisky based on heavily smoked, high peated malt. The time has come for Lagg whisky to make its market debut.

Isle of Arran Distillers has just announced the release of three whisky editions, the first of which, Lagg Single Malt Whisky Inaugural Release Batch 1, is expected to hit the market as early as August. The other two will be published at intervals of several months, so that the whole will be available by the end of this year.

Lagg Inaugural Release Batch 1 is a beverage matured entirely in bourbon barrels, in which it spent a full 36 months, which is the period required for a beverage to be called whisky. This whisky is based on barley of the Concerto variety, malted and dried over peat smoke from Aberdeenshire (northeast Scotland) to a level of 50 ppm. It was bottled as a 50% strength beverage, without cold filtering or caramel coloring. This batch is limited to 10,000 bottles.

Batch 2, Lagg Inaugural Release Batch 2 differs from the first in that it spent only 30 months in bourbon barrels, after which it was transferred to oloroso sherry barrels for another 6 months. Batch No. 3, on the other hand, after 30 months in sherry barrels, went into 55-liter barrels for 6 months, in which the red Rioja was previously stored. In both cases, as before, cold filtration and caramel coloring were abandoned. Here, too, we are dealing with barley of the Concerto variety, Aberdeenshire peat, smoking to 50 ppm and bottling after dilution to 50% vol. Each of the three editions is priced at £75 per bottle. The exact release dates of each batch will be announced at a later date.

Lagg whisky is sure to appear sooner or later also in the offer of the House of Whisky Online. The impatient are encouraged to learn more about the current Arran offer, whisky produced at the Lochranza distillery, located on the northern tip of the island of Arran.


[25.07.2022 / photo: Isle of Arran Distillers]