Why did you give it three stars if you score it a zero?

Speaking of the 12, has anyone asked WHY the 12 has gone up in price in the US? They didn't have a 2019 release, no new bottles to my knowledge have come out. So why would the price go up?

@ScotchingHard the 11 is much more a lower abv 12 than the 16. As far as I can tell and have read it's 100% bourbon casks. As at least the offerman was post tarrifs, it came in cheaper than the 16 which went up 20-30 because of tarrifs...that's not the fault of the distillery. As for the 8 showing off the spirit, that's perhaps true, it's just imo too young for the lag spirit. FYI lagavulin has long been known for using excessively reused barrels so this isn't a new thing with the 8.

@Anthology thanks man! Glad I’m not talking out my butt.

@dhsilv2 I think the purpose of lagavulin 8 is to have minimal cask influence and to highlight the spirit. It is distinct and I’m not mad it was made. My problem with Offerman and GOT is they are clearly inferior versions of the 16; they were priced at what the 16 was priced at; and the price of the 16 was jacked up $20-30.

@Soba45 agree with everything. Fortunately there are rising brands to replace the pop star distilleries. I am digging kilkerren, Arran, ancnoc, benromach to name a few.

@PBMichiganWolverine here in Maryland, I think $75 is the highest I’ve seen, but yeah, that was on release. Now it’s more like $60. The 16 has climbed to $100 and the 12 to $180-200.

@PBMichiganWolverine Did you say sub$5? Are we talking 750ml?

Nice, entertaining review! ...And the film analogy totally makes sense. Keep ‘em coming!

@Soba45 105-140 for the 16 around here, depending on the state I buy in. Always been higher here and with tarrifs it's brutal.

@PBMichiganWolverine Ah yes I see I can get the laga one for around $65 in duty free..although given we can't travel at the moment it might as well be locked in fort nox :-)

@dhsilv2 Yeah I did try the 11 amongst a whole lot of great drams e.g. CB Stranger and Stranger, Laphroaig-cairdeas's etc so by itself it probably would have been higher. Ah interesting. The 16 is only $75USD here still.

@Soba45 I found the 11, offerman to have a bit of spice which was a bit challenging at first, but ultimately I think it's a sign of better casks used. I ended up really thinking for about the 75 I paid, it was really a pefect addition to the line (keep in mind the 16 has gotten crazy expensive and 12 even worse).

@PBMichiganWolverine :-) Revenge IS a dish best served cold.

@cascode no...even better. She will get all my bottom shelf sub $5 whiskey.

@PBMichiganWolverine One presumes said niece has been disinherited?

@cascode Yeah, neither would I. I had bought the set with the intention of selling it, never drinking it—-it jus felt too gimmicky from the get-go. Unfortunately, never got to sell it nor drink it.

@PBMichiganWolverine I’ve seen sets and half-sets of the GoT series on special in the bargain basement liquor franchises over here. I’m not even mildly surprised, and I still wouldn’t buy any. Regarding this 8 year old, I'm the contrary one as I very much enjoyed it. I think of it as the poor man's 12 year old, that one and this being the only OB Lagavulin worth drinking nowdays.

@Soba45 that GoT bunch is now severely discounted, close to 40% off. The first few who bought it at £1000 in auction are kicking themselves. ( but not kicking themselves as hard as me , who’s niece drank my entire lot with her buddies in college )

@dhsilv2 Yeah the GOT variant was my favourite of the lot..although to be fair the rest of the GOT bunch were average so didn't take too much to shine. GOT, then Nick O and this one similar scores for me. GOT was just more classic aka 16yr profile which i liked.

Interesting, I found the Game of Thrones and Nick Offerman to not just be better but substantially better than this offering. I'd comment about my love of Requiem for a Dream, but it dawns on me I was pretty immature and youthful when I last saw that one. As to lagavulin, this is a showcase that a brand that makes some of the best malt in scotland is also for some odd reason where Diago sends casks to die. Why can't get some fresher and better cask?

Agreed. I paid $60 for this in Texas. Even then you’re paying for the name...

@PBMichiganWolverine $90-100 is outrageous. In my neck of the woods (greater Boston) in goes for $40, occasionally $35. For that price, I find it to be without peers. Not so once the price goes upwards.

Once the mkting and sales depts get the reigns a lot of this stuff gets pumped out. Could be worse at least they haven't gone down the HP NAS route. A lot of the greats I held a cut above the rest I've been losing or completely lost interest in. Macallan, HP, Arbelour, Balvenie, Lagavullin, Ardbeg, Balvenie even Glendronach and Laphroaig lately.They have bastardized what made them great whilst simultaneously trying to wring the maximum $ out of us. In the words of RR 'I didn't leave the classic whisky distillery's..they left me'. Occasionally there maybe something from them that, if very well reviewed by people I trust, or the older bottlings I'll be interested in. The fan boy in me died a long slow drawn out death from 1000 marketing and sales department cuts.... Springbank and Talisker are still up there for me although for the latter it's purely inspite of the mkting and sales departments best efforts to dilute the shite out of the brand that they have still come through with great stuff (amongst the lowly priced NAS garbage) and the distillery profile refuses to roll over and be watered down. Anyway thats my rant / ode to the death of legends..haha. I wonder what all the master distillers think when they are tasked with producing this stuff? At least there are a lot of great newbie distilleries doing great stuff.

@ScotchingHard i was also less than impressed by this one. It was that much more shocking to me seeing this on shelves ( remember those days...walking to a store and browsing?) for over $90-100.