The spiritual home of the blend White Horse was founded in 1816. John Johnston, the father of the founder of Laphroaig Distillery, took the first distillery called Ardmore over in 1825. Peter Mackie, the creator of the blend White Horse, built a new distillery called Malt Mill on the grounds of Lagavulin to produce a Laphraoig style of spirit in 1908.

Lagavulin played a major role in the blend White Horse from 1890 onwards. After the death of Peter Mackie his firm became White Horse Distillers Company Ltd. in 1924 which joined the Distillers Company Limited (DCL) in 1927.

Most of Lagavulin‘s annual production of 2.300.000 litres of pure alcohol goes into single malt bottling. It has been one of the Classic Malt Selection since 1987 and became the Islay representative and the most popular of Islay malts. At Lagvulin they work three shifts on a seven day a week basis.

About 2.45 million litres of new make spirit are produced per year (2014). The spirit stills are larger than the wash stills and filled at about 95% of its volume. The malt is from Port Ellen Maltings at a specification of 35-40 ppm. Three bonded warehouses are on site. Most of the production is tankered to the mainland.

There is a nice visitor centre with an excellent and very comfortable tasting lounge. In one of the displays you will find a precious 30 year old Lagavulin Single Malt  bottled on 2 June, 1911.

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