Lagavulin 1993 Managers' Choice

Lagavulin distillery is one of the quintessential Islay producers, built in the early 19th century before eventually finding itself in the hands of White Horse blenders and their infamous proprietor, Sir Peter Mackie. It has truly captured the imagination of the whisky world in modern times, with the 16 year old becoming an instant (if unexpected) favourite when introduced as one of United Distillers' Classic Malts in 1988. The company had not expected the smoky flavours to be as popular as lighter offerings such as Dalwhinnie and Glenkinchie. Lagavulin was also home to the legendary (and near mythical) Malt Mill distillery in the first half of the 20th century.

Back in February 2009, a selection of Diageo distillery managers were tasked to choose a single cask of whisky from each of the 27 malt whisky distilleries in the company's portfolio at the time. The Managers' Choice releases were quite controversial when initially released, being fairly young whiskies with quite high price tags. Official single cask releases from these distilleries are still rare however (as are official release at all in some cases), so perhaps these would be considered quite reasonable now.

This was comfortably the most popular in the range, a 1993 vintage sherry cask release.