Lagavulin's New Nick Offerman Collaboration Is an Award Winner—and a Great Deal
Islay-based distillery Lagavulin just released a new Scotch whisky alongside actor Nick Offerman, named the Offerman Edition 11 Year-Old Caribbean Rum Cask Finish Single-Malt Scotch Whisky.
As the fourth limited-edition bottle released with Offerman, it celebrates his apparent affinity for the high seas. In this case, that means the Scotch maker aged the 11-year-old single-malt in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks, and finished it in ex-Caribbean rum casks for a little over eight months. The result is a sweet and smoky whisky that looks to bring together the best of both island spirits—one known for peat and the others known for sugarcane.
On the nose, the fourth Lagavulin Offerman release offers aromas of lemon meringue, honey, oak, and maritime brine. The palate finds vanilla, toffee, cinnamon, and salt, leading to a lingering finish filled with tropical fruits and peat.
"Laboring together with Lagavulin blending master Stuart Morrison, we have landed upon our most delicious, exotic liquid yet," Offerman proudly proclaimed, continuing: "Now to silence the scandal-mongers. There have been many accusations leveled against me regarding my desire to concoct the perfect dram to sit and sip whilst viewing my favorite mermaid musicals, so that I might feel even more fully like a Scottish-Caribbean underwater siren-princess. To these scurrilous abusers I have only this to say: What I do in my own time, whether under the sea or above it, is nobody's business but my own. Slàinte mhath."
How did the collaboration come to be? In the second episode of Parks & Recreation’s sixth season, Nick Offerman’s profoundly American character, Ron Swanson, heads to Europe for this first time and journeys to the one place worth visiting, the Lagavulin distillery, “where God's chosen elixirs are distilled, barreled, and prepared for consumption.” While the show wrapped back in 2015, it led to a significant partnership between Offerman and the Islay distillery that’s seen a new whisky hit shelves about every two years since 2019.
This latest release from Lagavulin and Offerman has already begun to pick up awards, collecting a Double Gold at the 2024 San Francisco World Spirits Competition–which all four whiskies in the series have now received.
The limited-edition Lagavulin Offerman Edition: Caribbean Rum Cask Finished Single-Malt is available wherever fine spirits are sold in the U.S., U.K., Germany, China, Taiwan, Australia and the Lagavulin Distillery in Scotland for $90.
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