Spirits · Red Meat & Cigar Club editorial

Scotch: Macallan 18 & Lagavulin 16

Sherry oak and Islay smoke — two benchmarks of single malt.

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Bottles of The Macallan 12, 15 and 18 year old single malt Scotch — Photo: Ssu / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

If bourbon is America's sweet, oak-driven whiskey, single malt Scotch is the country cousin with a library card: 100% malted barley, distilled in copper pot stills at one distillery, and aged at least three years in Scotland, usually much longer. Two bottles show how wide the range is.

Single malt, blended, and peat

Single malt is one distillery, all malted barley, pot stills. Blended Scotch, which is most of the Scotch sold worldwide, combines malts with lighter grain whisky from column stills. Peat is the wildcard. Drying the malt over a peat fire adds smoky, medicinal phenols, and it's a signature of Islay distilleries like Lagavulin, Laphroaig and Ardbeg. Speyside, home of The Macallan, is mostly unpeated and known for fruit and sherry-cask richness. Remember that the age on a Scotch label is the age of the youngest whisky in the bottle.

The Macallan 18 Years Old Sherry Oak

The Macallan, at Easter Elchies on the River Spey, was licensed in 1824 and built its reputation on unusually small stills and sherry-seasoned oak casks from Jerez, Spain. The 18 Year Old Sherry Oak is bottled at 43% ABV. The color comes from the casks.

In the glass: dried fruit, orange, ginger, Christmas-cake spice and wood smoke without peat. It's rich and silky and lingers. This is a special-occasion bottle and has been a benchmark of the sherried style for decades. Prices are high and vary widely, so check a reputable retailer.

The Lagavulin distillery on the shore of Islay, Scotland — The Lagavulin distillery on the south coast of Islay. Photo: Rappilio / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Lagavulin 16 Year Old

Lagavulin sits in a small bay on Islay's south coast and dates its founding to 1816. The 16-Year-Old is the distillery's flagship, bottled at 43% ABV, and is one of the best-known peated malts in the world.

In the glass: big peat smoke, iodine and sea spray first, then sweetness underneath: dried fruit, toffee and a little sherry-like richness. Very long, smoky finish. People tend to love it or hate it. Add a few drops of water to open it up.

How to drink it

Neat, in a tulip-shaped glass, maybe with a splash of water. Ice mutes the aromas. Speyside sherry malts go well with a cigar after dinner. Islay malts suit fuller, earthier smokes and hearty food.

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