Lagg Corriecravie

The Maker

What do you do if you’re running a highly successful and respected distillery on the Isle of Arran? If you’re Arran Distillery the answer is simple: you start another one!

Yet there’s little point creating a new distillery unless you have something distinct to do with it. For Arran the answer was to embrace peat. Historically Arran has predominantly produced unpeated whisky, with sporadic peated releases under the Machrie Moor brand – named for a series of standing stones not from where Lagg distillery now stands at the southern tip of the island. Having tried several of these over the years the quality has been mixed. While there was the occasional belter, more often than not the peat rarely felt integrated, and clashed with the simpler, sweeter notes that dominate so much of what Arran do so well.

Running peated and unpeated production isn’t something to be taken lightly. Indeed if you look around Scotland, with a dozen or so notable examples aside, it isn’t something that’s widely practiced, especially at scale. Where it is achieved, it’s often done in blocks. This is where a distillery effectively shuts down its normal production for several weeks to switch to peat, before returning for the rest of the year – see Glen Scotia. Furthermore, it has increasingly become the norm for it to be released under an entirely different name, with perhaps Tobermory/Ledaig being one of the best known examples.

When you consider this complexity it isn’t surprising that setting up a bespoke second distillery to focus wholly on peat becomes an attractive prospect. And from this logic Lagg was born in 2019. Indeed, the Lagg website is very specific, with production commencing at precisely 14:35 on Tuesday 19th March.

The question then became how peated to make it? Lagg settled on 50ppm, which places it firmly in the heavily peated range of Ardbeg and Longrow. The latter comparison isn’t that surprising given how close Arran has been to the Springbank family over the years. This has taken the form of providing early warehouse storage when Arran was too small, through to Springbank being the source of Arran’s current Managing Director.  Of course ppm doesn’t really mean that much when it comes to how peated a whisky ends up being. Nonetheless, it remains a good indicator of what style a given distillery is trying to achieve.

With all this set in stone Lagg has been slowly producing and maturing through the pandemic, and just over three years later was ready to start releasing its cache into what has become a heavily saturated and competitive marketplace. As such the question has to be, is it any good relative to all those other options out there?

The Expression

The Corriecravie is Lagg’s second core range release, following on from the first-fill bourbon matured Kilmory that launched in September 2022. As far as I can establish the Corriecravie is exactly the same as the Kilmory, except that it has had an additional six months maturation in Oloroso Hogsheads from Miguel Martin Jerez. By all accounts these are among the best sherry casks you can get and are the same bodega that supply the likes of Kilchoman. It’s bottled at a cask strength of 55%, and as you would expect is not chill-filtered, is of natural colour, and costs £65. Beyond that there isn’t a whole lot to say about it. As a core range release this has to be something that Lagg can comfortably replicate for years to come, but I strongly suspect that they have put their best casks forward for this inaugural release.

The Neck Pour

The first thing which hits the nose is an incredibly intense peat smoke and sweet sherry. It’s a rough medicinal peat like a south coast Islay but with hints of oiliness that equates to a good Caol Ila. The sherry is much more intense that what you’d normally get from peated Islay heavyweights however. If anything it's a lot closer to a Ledaig. Finally there’s a saltiness to round it all off.

The palate delivers on the above and more. It’s hard to believe that this is just over three years old when the flavour isn’t far off something you’d get from several decade old malts. Ok it might not have the roundedness, depth or the complexity that comes with age, but the flavours are all there and are easily comparable to an Ardbeg or Laphroaig 10yo. This comes in the form of rich plums and molasses mixed with a briny peat smoke and a hefty dose of bonfire and hazelnut chocolate. All is completed with a bitterness on the finish which quickly leaves you wanting more. Not a bad start at all.

The Body

The first half this bottle has gone down very easily. With the benefit of oxidation it’s now the bonfire notes which have developed most. Alongside them there’s now plenty of leather and dark chocolate. One more questionable change is a new metallic note that comes through on the finish. I sometimes get this in younger Ardbeg, and have never got to the bottom of what causes it. It’s not a terrible experience, but might put some people off. Beyond that the rich stone fruits are still there to bring their sweetness, but are combining with the more bitter notes to deliver something closer to that lingonberry jam you can get from Ikea to go with your meatballs.

To get wider views I shared this bottle with my whisky group and it came a very respectable third out of twelve on a smoke themed tasting. It lost out only to a port matured Benriach and a special release from the ever impressive Isle of Raasay. All of which suggests that it isn’t just me who likes it.

Final Thoughts

Coming to the end of the bottle the lingonberry notes are as strong as ever. As is the rough peat intensity that’s been there from the start. These two extremes have managed to come together into something which isn’t a million miles away from a smoky summer fruits squash. This is very satisfying given my experience of several Machrie Moor releases failing to achieve such integration. One additional element which has built throughout the bottle is something akin to tannings like you’d normally get with a wine or port matured whisky. That is cut through somewhat by the aforementioned metallic note, but all in all it still works very well.

In summary this remains a good quality whisky which has developed far more than would be expected for something of such a low age. However, I keep coming back to that price point of £65. That’s simply far too much for a three and a half year old whisky from the same company which can consistently deliver the Arran 10 for £35.

This is part of a wider trend in modern distilleries charging high prices for young products. While I’m sympathetic to the idea that perhaps these prices are demanded by the distillery’s debt profile. Or that the running costs of a new place are very high. Or that there are economies of scale and processes which only come with maturity. But equally I can’t see any of those being enough to justify twice the price for something that’s been around for a third of the time. When you add in the fact that we are overwhelmed by new distillery offerings every few months, it isn’t the kind of pricing which makes me want to come back to Lagg anytime soon to replace it.

To answer my original question, yes it's good and yes it does compare well to its competitors. I’m happy I’ve tried it and I really enjoyed it. But my lasting feeling is that if this whisky is this good now, just imagine what it will be like when they are able to release a ten year old? This isn’t me saying I’m going to wait for that long to buy another one, but as much as I like it, there isn’t enough here to make me rush out and buy another one over trying something different.