Lagg is the younger sibling of the Lochranza distillery, opened in 2019 on the southern shore of Arran and dedicated from the outset to heavily peated single malt. Where Lochranza (the Arran distillery) had always been predominantly unpeated, Lagg was built to give the company a permanent peated stablemate and to revive the memory of the illicit stills that once worked the south of the island in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Kilmory is the first core bottling, named after the parish in which the distillery sits. It is peated to around 50 ppm at malting, matured in ex-bourbon casks, and bottled at 46% ABV, non chill-filtered and natural in colour. The distillery's first spirit ran in March 2019, and Kilmory was released once the three-year minimum was comfortably behind it.
The nose is recognisably peated but without aggression: damp peat, vanilla, pear and a gentle coastal saltiness. The palate is sweeter than the ppm figure suggests, with lemon oil, honey and a soft, earthy smoke rather than the medicinal bite of some western cousins. The finish is medium, the smoke turning ashy before giving way to a cereal sweetness.
As a debut it is admirably composed. Lagg does not yet have the vocabulary of an older distillery, but Kilmory shows that the house has a voice of its own, and that the south of Arran has good reason to smoke again.
