Palate: Intense smoke dissolves into aromatic fruit. Pear-drops and lemon candy, with more waves of zesty peat. Very smooth and thick – almost chewy.
Finish: There’s those maritime notes we expect. Very mineral rich notes of sea salt, beaches and shells.
I’m a huge fan of this style of whisky. Cask strength, maritime, smoky whisky that hits you in the face like a stiff January breeze on the coast of Scotland.
In fact, this reminds me massively of the core flavour you get in Douglas Laing’s Big Peat, a really delicious vatted malt of Caol Ila, Arbeg, Bowmore and a splash of Port Ellen. If I had to guess the make-up of that vatting, I’d put my money on young Caol Ila making up the bulk of it.
And why not? It’s plentiful, cheap, and bloody delicious.
This was given to me as a Christmas gift, and try as I might I can’t find any information about it online. There’s quite a few other bottlings of five year old Caol Ila available though, so I recommend you give them a try if you can. Diageo recently stopped indy bottlings of Caol Ila, so I expect the only chance you have to try a five-year-old will soon be at the distillery on a premium tasting.
Looking out across the sound of Islay (Caol Ila, in Gaelic) towards the paps of Jura
Ah, Caol Ila. A wonderful enigma of a distillery. Classic Islay flavours, from an industrial blends work-horse that labours day and night for Diageo.
The malt itself is absolutely top-notch and stands up very well by itself as a distillate, regardless of cask flavour. Even at very young ages, it’s remarkably well-made stuff.
Over Christmas, I’ve ended up with quite a bit of Caol Ila in the house so I decided to line them up and compare them to see if that core distillery character comes through in each one, and also to see which age and cask leads to the best whisky.
Caol Ila 5 (Old Malt Cask)
Distillery: Caol Ila Bottled: 2014, Distilled: 2008 Age: 5 years old ABV: 50% Bottler: Hunter Laing Cask: Refill bourbon
Let’s start with the unruly youth of the group, an Old Malt Cask advance sample of Caol Ila bottled at five years old.
Palate: Intense smoke dissolves into aromatic fruit. Pear-drops and lemon candy, with more waves of zesty peat. Very smooth and thick – almost chewy.
Finish: There’s those maritime notes we expect. Very mineral rich notes of sea salt, beaches and shells.
I’m a huge fan of this style of whisky. Cask strength, maritime, smoky whisky that hits you in the face like a stiff January breeze on the coast of Scotland.
In fact, this reminds me massively of the core flavour you get in Douglas Laing’s Big Peat, a really delicious vatted malt of Caol Ila, Arbeg, Bowmore and a splash of Port Ellen. If I had to guess the make-up of that vatting, I’d put my money on young Caol Ila making up the bulk of it.
And why not? It’s plentiful, cheap, and bloody delicious.
This was given to me as a Christmas gift, and try as I might I can’t find any information about it online. There’s quite a few other bottlings of five year old Caol Ila available though, so I recommend you give them a try if you can. Diageo recently stopped indy bottlings of Caol Ila, so I expect the only chance you have to try a five-year-old will soon be at the distillery on a premium tasting.
Caol Ila 1998 Unpeated (2014 special release)
Distillery: Caol Ila Bottled: 2014, Distilled: 1998 Age: 15 years old ABV: 60.3% Cask: First-fill bourbon More Info: WhiskyBase
Here’s a curve ball – a Caol Ila without even a trace of peat. Will it be recognisable as the gentle, smoky, maritime malt that we know and love? Let’s see……
Nose: Milk, pear syrup, honeysuckle, acetone, vanilla, citrus and sherbet.
Palate: Lemon candy, and more sherbet. Herby, floral notes – lavender and thyme. Sweet malt and cereal, with a little more milk – whole milk, too, quite creamy. Viscous mouthfeel, but not actually creamy.
Finish: Some citrus tang remains, a touch of salt and toasted oak at the very end.
I never would have guessed the ABV is so high. There’s no burn at all, the spirit feels very soft in the mouth with delicate notes to the flavour.
Caol Ila usually gets lemon candy and salt in the tasting notes, and those are most definitely still in evidence. Even the sherbet quality on the nose, which I always assumed to be the peat talking.
I tried the Stitchell’s Reserve unpeated Caol Ila last year and wasn’t especially impressed. This bottling’s head and shoulders above it and maintains what we knew all along – the Caol Ila distillery produces some fantastic distillate, which can clearly stand on its feet without peated barley to zest it up.
No samples currently, but the chaps at Master of Malt have bottles available for £73.96. That’s pretty good for a 15-year-old spirit at such a high cask strength – throw in the intrigue of an unpeated Caol Ila and the limited bottling run of 10,668 and you have a real bargain.
Caol Ila Moch
Distillery: Caol Ila Age: No Age Statement ABV: 43% More Info: WhiskyBase
Moch is a no-age-statement release where the barley isn’t as heavily peated as the standard 12-year-old. It’s a very similar price to the standard bottling, and the cut-back on PPM reveals some very appealing flavours.
Nose: Sea air, brine, soft smoke, sea-shells and sand. This is a walk on the Atlantic coast.
Palate: Oily but delicate coastal notes allow some soft fruit to come through with a hint of that lemon candy and sherbet. Very soft in the mouth.
Finish: Salt and pepper.
I actually like this more than the standard release. And that’s saying something because I really like the standard release. If you’re looking for an easy-sipping, interesting, and affordable Islay malt then look no further.
No doubt, it was intentionally engineered to be all of those things – but in their objectives, I think Diageo have done well with this one.
Distillery: Caol Ila Bottled: 2014, Distilled: 1983 Age: 30 years old ABV: 55.1% Cask: Refill American and European Oak More Info:WhiskyBase
I’ve been looking forward to this one! In 2014, I tried Cadenhead’s Small Batch release of Caol Ila 29 and it totally blew me away.
Given that the indy bottling was £100 and Diageo’s official Caol Ila 30 year old goes for over £400, I think my mind’s already made up as to what the best deal is.
But what about the whisky itself?
Nose: Sweet clementines, but also that cloudy apple juice note, tangy sherbet, some milk chocolate.
Palate: Very oily, with more orange citrus notes, and some tropical fruits bordering on melon and pineapple. Woody notes, with soft peat smoke and a peppery tang. Some leathery, savoury flavours in there.
Finish: Quite peppery, with lingering smoke.
It has a lot of the same characteristics that the Cadenhead’s bottling has. Gentle smoke and citrus notes with some interesting fruit coming through as well as an oily, savoury influence from the wood that gives it that dusty, leathery quality.
It’s an interesting whisky, for sure. But it is quite peppery and woody on the finish and the flavour in comparison to the 29 seems quite subdued. Still good, of course; but, I didn’t enjoy it as much. There’s a difference between being subtle, and being faint.
The Caol Ila 30 is a vatting of 30-year-old whisky aged in American and European refill casks. I’d imagine Diageo have tried to engineer it to have similar qualities to a 30 year old Port Ellen – leather, soft smoke, maritime savoury notes etc. They have a lot more Caol Ila stock to play with, and the golden goose of Port Ellen will stop laying eggs eventually.
Sadly, I think the refill casks they used here were a little too tired to carry the spirit for 30 years and the vatting process between American and European oak has lost something in translation.
If I hadn’t tried such a sensational Caol Ila from Cadenhead beforehand then I may have been more impressed, but it’s not the way it panned out. Sorry, Diageo, this time you lose.
Love the packaging, though. It’ll look lovely in display cabinets across the world.
So, I think if this set of tasting notes has shown anything, it’s that Caol Ila malt is a high quality spirit that can produce great bottlings with or without peat, and at younger and older maturation times.
For me, I think it shines best in Bourbon casks, whether they’re first-fill or re-fill. As for which age suits Caol Ila best, that’s a tougher call to make. Clearly, it can age very well indeed, and yields some fabulous flavours over time – the Cadenhead bottling literally makes me grin in delight when I taste it.
On the other hand, the younger (and no-age statement) expressions are full of punchy, classic Islay flavour and on a Winter’s night by the fire they’re guaranteed to brighten up the darkness of the season.
Caol Ila starts as an oily, sooty, lemon, dipped in salt. It matures into candies and sherbet, with great mouthfeel and coastal air characteristics of beach and shells. As it ages further, the lemons turn into oranges and tropical fruits, with the wood (if cask selection is up to scratch) imparting savoury, leathery notes into the mix.
I bloody love it, I really do. Here’s to many more fine drams over the years.
Distillery: Lagavulin Bottled: 2008, Distilled: 1995 Age: 12 years old ABV: 48% Cask: European first-fill sherry More Info: WhiskyBase
Here’s another Islay treat. Lagavulin is Diageo’s other Islay distillery (besides Caol Ila), and this particular release is part of their “Friends of Classic Malts” series of special releases.
After a couple of years trying various bottlings, I really feel I’m beginning to understand Lagavulin.
Ardbeg and Laphroaig are big, shouty, extroverted whiskies. The former is full of proud, earthy peat flavour; the latter has that distinctly medicinal, iodine quality. Of the three Islay distilleries in Kildalton, Laga is the quiet and unassuming one in the middle – soft, subtle, and elegantly understated.
As tends to be the way, it’s the quiet ones you should watch out for.
Let’s (figuratively) dive in:
Nose: There’s rich, full, rounded fruit aromas wrapped in the savoury, dry, smoky notes of Lagavulin peat.Plum jam, blackberries, sultanas, pine resin, fresh rolling tobacco, sea salt, and a very definite smell of tea leaves. Thick legs on it, and a dark sherried colour. I’m expecting a lot of sherry influence on the tongue.
Palate: Would never guess this is a first-fill sherry if I hadn’t read it beforehand. Sweet wood smoke leads the way, developing into savoury cereal and wood notes. The sweetness seems to come from the barley, rather than the grape, and so it’s not over-powering at all, revealing more of those savoury notes: liquorice, toasted-oak (with only a tiny hint of vanilla) and some maritime mineral flavours.
Finish: The gentle peat smoke and liquorice notes linger, with a mouth-drying texture akin to black tea.
I could happily just nose this whisky all night – the balance between sweet fruit and savoury peat is spot-on and the subtle notes just keep on evolving in the glass. I’d love to know what kind of sherry was in the barrel beforehand.
The way they’ve got the sherry notes on the nose, but have reserved the palate for those malty, oaky, peaty flavours is a stroke of genius, since it gives you the opportunity to appreciate each set of flavours distinctly.
After the fruity nose, and knowing it was matured in a first-fill barrel, I was expecting a sherry monster… but there’s no monsters here.
Cracking stuff.
Thanks very much to the Blankenstijn family at WhiskySample.nl for the taster.
Distillery: Port Ellen Bottled: 2002, Distilled: 1978 Age: 24 years old ABV: 59.35% Cask: Bourbon cask
Nose: Leather and old books, sherbet, damp wood. Rain smell. Pebble beach.
Palate: Sweet lemon candy, brine, soft ashy smoke. Oily mouthfeel, like runny honey. A little fragrant floral note too, something like the rosewater flavour of Turkish delight.
Finish: Savoury, nutty aftertaste. Cloves, black pepper, tobacco leaf. A little more sherbet tingle.
Like smoking a mild, sweet cigar by a fire in an old antique shop after eating a lemon meringue pie. Glorious.
Remarkably smooth and mellow for a 59% cask strength Islay. 24 years in barrel have created a really round, soft flavour so the peat shout is now all but a whisper. This has softened the character to one with more ashy, sooty notes than fresh smoke. Sort of like the dry, dusty embers of a beach fire…
As expected with Port Ellen, there’s a distinctively lemon-sherbet nose amidst a pleasant woody dampness, hints of dusty leather armchair. Also plenty of clear coastal notes of sea salt and pebble beach.
Thanks very much to the Blankenstijn family at WhiskySample.nl for the taster. Sadly, there are no more samples of this bottling left now, though there are still some unofficial bottlings available.
Distillery: Lagavulin Bottled: 2014 Age: 12 years old ABV: 54.4% Cask: Bourbon Cask
Nose: Wet rocks, fresh peat, sea air – a hint of seaweed and brine. Varnish and lacquer.
Palate: Viscous and oily, zesty and savoury smoke. Woody tobacco flavours.
Finish: Smooth and oaky with a touch of black pepper.
I do love a Lagavulin 12. The 16 is sublime but I like the unsherried character of the younger brother – that lack of sweet edge reveals some very tasty savoury elements. And a cask-strength Islay is always a winner in my book.
Sample came from the lovely chaps at Master of Malt for just £7.72.
Distillery: Sullivan’s Cove Bottled: 2013 Age: 12 years old ABV: 47.5% Cask: French Oak (Port Cask)
Nose: Vanilla bean, red currants, red apples.
Palate: Muscavado sugar and meadow flowers with more soft fruit. A definite flavour of red wine gums, with a wonderful waxy mouthfeel.
Finish: Honey and spicy oak, cardamon, a touch of clove.
So, this one had a lot of attention after winning a slew of awards in 2013 and 2014 (see Master of Malt for a list). Australian whisky isn’t something you see every day, so it’s a pleasure to try a sample
I do like the very waxy, wine-gum-esque mouthfeel and the notes of soft red fruits – it’s not a combination I’ve come across before as far as flavour profiles go.
I’ve seen the French Oak on sale at staggering prices and it’s nigh-on-impossible to get hold of a bottle unless you’re buying at auction. It’s very nice, but I think the huge amount of media attention it’s received has inflated the expectations (and price) beyond a level the whisky can represent. It’s good stuff, but I think the scarcity and novelty of it is driving the price far more than the liquid itself.
A bar in Manchester is selling 2.5cl measures for £16 a pop. I bought my 5cl sample from The Whisky Tasting Club for a mere £9. Bargain!
I’ve had the busiest December I can ever remember. Our house purchase finally completed so we’ve been frantically moving in and unpacking. Our baby is due any day now so we’ve been buying all the clothes and bits and bobs that little humans need.
Into the mix we’ve had all the usual Christmas business of cooking, wrapping, unwrapping and visiting.
Luckily, I’ve still found some time to relax and enjoy a dram or two here and there over the holidays.
Up first, a popular little number from Down Under:
Sullivan’s Cove French Oak
Distillery: Sullivan’s Cove Bottled: 2013 Age: 12 years old ABV: 47.5% Cask: French Oak (Port Cask)
Nose: Vanilla bean, red currants, red apples.
Palate: Muscavado sugar and meadow flowers with more soft fruit. A definite flavour of red wine gums, with a wonderful waxy mouthfeel.
Finish: Honey and spicy oak, cardamon, a touch of clove.
So, this one had a lot of attention after winning a slew of awards in 2013 and 2014 (see Master of Malt for a list). Australian whisky isn’t something you see every day, so it’s a pleasure to try a sample
I do like the very waxy, wine-gum-esque mouthfeel and the notes of soft red fruits – it’s not a combination I’ve come across before as far as flavour profiles go.
I’ve seen the French Oak on sale at staggering prices and it’s nigh-on-impossible to get hold of a bottle unless you’re buying at auction. It’s very nice, but I think the huge amount of media attention it’s received has inflated the expectations (and price) beyond a level the whisky can represent. It’s good stuff, but I think the scarcity and novelty of it is driving the price far more than the liquid itself.
A bar in Manchester is selling 2.5cl measures for £16 a pop. I bought my 5cl sample from The Whisky Tasting Club for a mere £9. Bargain!
Lagavulin 12 (2014)
Distillery: Lagavulin Bottled: 2014 Age: 12 years old ABV: 54.4% Cask: Bourbon Cask
Nose: Wet rocks, fresh peat, sea air – a hint of seaweed and brine. Varnish and lacquer.
Palate: Viscous and oily, zesty and savoury smoke. Woody tobacco flavours.
Finish: Smooth and oaky with a touch of black pepper.
I do love a Lagavulin 12. The 16 is sublime but I like the unsherried character of the younger brother – that lack of sweet edge reveals some very tasty savoury elements. And a cask-strength Islay is always a winner in my book.
Sample came from the lovely chaps at Master of Malt for just £7.72.
Bowmore Feis Ile 2014, 1989
Distillery: Bowmore Bottled: 2014 Age: 24 years old ABV: 53.3% Cask: Bourbon cask and French wine barrique
Nose: Pithy orange, candy, white chocolate ganache, roses, and a faint whiff of the sea.
Palate: Tart and tangy fruits. Blood oranges, raspberry, a touch of bitter marmalade with sweet fragrant smoke running throughout.
Finish: Parma violets and love hearts – a fruity sherbet explosion.
My gosh, wow. I can see why people queue-up for days outside the distillery to get their mitts on this stuff. It’s absolutely bloody lovely.
Sample came from the lovely chaps at Master of Malt for £29.63. Not bad, given the bottle sets you back £465. Sadly, it’s all gone now…
Port Ellen 1978 (2nd Release)
Distillery: Port Ellen Bottled: 2002, Distilled: 1978 Age: 24 years old ABV: 59.35% Cask: Bourbon cask
Nose: Leather and old books, sherbet, damp wood. Rain smell. Pebble beach.
Palate: Sweet lemon candy, brine, soft ashy smoke. Oily mouthfeel, like runny honey. A little fragrant floral note too, something like the rosewater flavour of Turkish delight.
Finish: Savoury, nutty aftertaste. Cloves, black pepper, tobacco leaf. A little more sherbet tingle.
Like smoking a mild, sweet cigar by a fire in an old antique shop after eating a lemon meringue pie. Glorious.
Remarkably smooth and mellow for a 59% cask strength Islay. 24 years in barrel have created a really round, soft flavour so the peat shout is now all but a whisper. This has softened the character to one with more ashy, sooty notes than fresh smoke. Sort of like the dry, dusty embers of a beach fire…
As expected with Port Ellen, there’s a distinctively lemon-sherbet nose amidst a pleasant woody dampness, hints of dusty leather armchair. Also plenty of clear coastal notes of sea salt and pebble beach.
Thanks very much to the Blankenstijn family at WhiskySample.nl for the taster. Sadly, there are no more samples of this bottling left now, though there are still some unofficial bottlings available.
My goodness, what wonderful whisky…
Much love to one and all and best wishes for the new year – here’s to all the drams to come in 2015.
Here’s a little bit of fun! A single cask bottling of Macallan at cask strength from WhiskyBroker.co.uk.
I have to confess that I don’t often drink Macallan. The good stuff’s expensive, and the affordable stuff is… a bit predictable and inoffensive for my taste. So it’s a treat to try a single cask at cask strength, with no smoothing the rough edges or cosmetic tweaking.
Nose: Apple flavoured NutriGrain bar. Rich tea biscuits. Sour apple sweets. Wheat flour.
Palate: More sour fruit flavours, like Granny Smith apples. Sweet malted barley. Quite hot (even at 49%). Mulled cider.
Finish: Charcoal and black pepper, becoming bitter at the end.
It’s like a fruity sour mash whiskey. But…. add some water (about 20%) and it transforms completely. The fruitiness is still there but the sour and bitter notes have softened, revealing the underlying malty, cereal notes. Still appley, but much smoother and cleaner.
Maybe it’s just this cask that’s a bit off, or perhaps Macallan really shines at lower ABV than other whiskies – either way, this one’s definitely better at 40% than 49%.
Interesting stuff from the Edrington chaps. People really go mad for sherried Macallan so it’s nice to have a Bourbon cask for a change. Those hallmark apple and pear flavours really shine through, particularly on the nose.
Here’s one of those bottles that only comes around every once in a while.
I first tried this Small Batch bottling from WM Cadenhead’s at a whisky tasting with Manchester Whisky Club. It was the last dram of the night and it completely shamed the rest of the line-up (which wasn’t shabby by any means).
With my 29th birthday coming up, I couldn’t resist and bagged myself one of the last remaining bottles whereupon it sat on my shelf until I cracked it open in September. Now it’s down to the very last dram, I feel I need to mark its passing with a well-deserved closer inspection.
Caol Ila is something of a power-house distillery in an industrial-looking installation, which would be downright ugly if not for the incredible view over the Sound of Islay (where Caol Ila takes its name) towards the Paps of Jura, just a few miles away.
Their output is a heck of a lot bigger than every other distillery on Islay, and most of the spirit it produces will end up in Diageo’s blended whiskies. The malt itself is absolutely top-notch, though, and stands up very well by itself as a distillate. Even at very young ages, it’s remarkably well-made stuff.
Diageo certainly thought so in the seventies when they rebuilt the distillery to boost its output and by the eighties, with Caol Ila still going strong, they decided to mothball and eventually demolish the now infamous distillery at Port Ellen.
Having been lucky enough to try a couple of different official and indy bottlings of Port Ellen, I have to say that the flavour profile has a lot in common with Caol Ila. I don’t get the chamois leather with the latter, but there’s plenty of lemon sherbet, damp wood, sea shells and sea-spray.
In some ways, I see Caol Ila as the poor-man’s Port Ellen. No disservice intended there, but when an official bottling can set you back two-grand you’ve got to have a fat wallet to stand any chance of ever owning any.
Anyway, I digress. This whisky waited twenty-nine years in a barrel so I should do the polite thing and do some tasting…
Nose: The typical candied lemon and smoky peat you get with younger Caol Ila has really calmed down and grown up here. The volume of the music at the party’s been set to a mature, grown-up level. You can hear the conversation in the room now. I get sweet smoke, cloudy apple juice, paprika, Easter Egg chocolate, damp wood, tangerine and fresh honeydew melon.
Palate: Very rich and oily. Bitter oranges, poached pears, more cloudy apple juice, with a gentle woody smoke rising through the fruit.
Finish:Becomes waxy and spicy, with a Brazil nut undertone. Extraordinarily long and satisfying. Like a deep-muscle massage for your mind. It unlocks something in the brain that leads to fits of grinning, like some kind of serene whisky Nirvana*.
Wow… Wow.
Cadenhead are consistently bottling some excellent casks, with the Small Batch series being particularly tasty. This is a truly stunning bottling, at a very respectable price indeed.
Diageo have just released an official bottling of 30-year-old Caol Ila, which retails around £400 plus. This 29-year-old bottling was about a quarter of that price (sadly all gone now), and Cadenhead have a 30-year-old available (in limited numbers) in their Authentic range.
I’m not sure how much difference one year makes to the flavour profile of Caol Ila, but I’d guess it’ll be showing a lot of the same qualities. And with the Cadenhead bottling being so tasty at 29, I’m sure you can guess which bottling I’ll be drinking on my next birthday…
I will sincerely grieve the passing of this whisky, it’s absolutely fucking glorious. If you get chance to try some old Caol Ila, don’t pass it up. This stuff doesn’t just age with grace, this whisky is Stacey’s Mom – and my gosh, has she got it going on…
* The Buddhist kind, not the Seattle grunge group that Dave Grohl was stuck in before he started making proper music.
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Hope everyone’s having a great Christmas!
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Dramming UK 