Lagavulin 8 Year Old 200th Anniversary

Nice review. Interesting. I haven't had a dram of this in almost a month so it's hard to remember all the details...I've been meaning to do my own review.

In terms of price, here in Ontario the 8 YO is about $100, whereas the 16 is $123. The distiller's edition and 12 YO cask strength are both $160. So you can see that price and age are not clearly linked. I think one of the confounding variables is ABV.

I bought a 200 cc bottle of the 16 a few years ago and enjoyed it, but my last taste of a 16 was disappointing. It may have been the batch, or maybe I've become more fond of CS stuff.

I like the bolder flavour of the 8YO, likely supported by the higher ABV.

@Nozinan I've heard that the 16yo can be hit and miss depending on the cask. I've only ever had good bottles of it though.

Interesting the price difference for you over there. The 16yo is slightly cheaper than the 8yo here, while the Distillers Edition is more expensive as I believe is the 12yo.

I certainly enjoyed the 8yother and the higher abv is always nice to to have! However I just found it not as well rounded as the 16yo and for the price over here at least I'd buy the 16yo over the 8yo everytime. Although if I got a lesser cask version of the 16yo I might regret that decision.

I really liked the 8 yr, which surprised me. With the cost of it and young age statement I was ready to hate it but they've done a grand job

"With the ... young age statement I was ready to hate it."

Not to pick on @NNWhisky, but this is why our shelves get flooded with NAS.

@Ol_Jas but in this case it proudly caries an age statement

@Nozinan , please help me see your point.

@Ol_Jas I'll try, but not sure I can, because I'm trying to figure it out myself.

I think the gist of it is that the Lagavulin 8 is bucking the NAS trend and admitting to a young age.

But I think that the increasing prices of NAS whiskies have allowed Lagavulin to sell the 8 at a price point that is higher than it would otherwise be worth.

@Nozinan , so if we consider NAS bottles the "floor" of the whisky market, and we consider how their prices have been going up due to the ingenuity of their marketing with the atomic codes and the peat-breathing ghost-dogs and whatnot, then we see how an anomalous low-age-statement OB can "rise above" that floor to command a higher price than it would in the absence of all the NAS stuff?

I can dig it.

@Ol_Jas I think you've eloquently restated my comment.

Now, your statement "I can dig it", I assume you mean you understand it, not condone it.

@Nozinan , right: capiche.

I can't say I condone the whole phenomenon. As far as the Lag 8 goes, though, the price ($60-65 locally) seemed fair enough to try a bottle with my whisky club, and the quality it delivered at that price was good enough for me to buy another for myself. So I guess I condone the Lag 8 pricing, separate from the overall NAS pricing trends.

By the way, anyone especially interested in pricing trends should be reading the Diving for Pearls blog when he puts out his ~annual market analysis, which he just did. Here's part 1: divingforpearlsblog.com/2017/03/…

@Ol_Jas, thanks much for posting the link. Excellent material, and extremely thought-provoking.