Whisky : Caol Ila 17 Year “Unpeated Style” (2015 Edition)

Country/Region : Scotland/Islay

ABV : 55.9%

Cask : Ex-bourbon

Tasting : Neat in a Glencairn @ Whisky Tasting

Nose : Lovely funky parmesan cheese rind leaps out of the glass followed by a rainbow of salty notes.  There are bandages, cleaning solution, maritime sand, iodine, tide pools, and that lovely salty cheese.  There are some sweet hints of lemonade, but I am taken with just how coastal this dram is.

Palate : Silky smooth mouthfeel with lovely brown sugar.  There are bits of lime and lemon, perhaps more like scented cleaning product than actual fruits.  Bit of saltwater taffy and mineral oil.  Puckering salted rim of a margarita.

Finish : Lingering citrus notes, lemon peel, lemon rind, dried lemons.

Score : 6

Mental Image : Salty rim on a lemonade margarita.

Something Similar : Rock Oyster 18 Year (similar salt and citrus, smooth maritime character)

Something Worse : Ardbeg 10 Year (similar salt, more smoke, less body)

Notes :  This was one of those pours you try at a tasting and then immediately google to see how much it would be to get a bottle.  Not what I was expecting from Caol Ila.

It is not that I am not appreciative of Islay’s largest distillery— the workhorse that supports many of Diageo’s well known blends.  I have just never been a huge fan.  There are so many Independent Bottler expressions that even in my starved market they are easy to find and I never considered them anything special.  They have never trigged that same FOMO as other independent bottled Islays.

I would love to understand the methodology of this special edition a bit more.  As I understand it during a period every year Caol Ila switches over from distilling peated malted barley to do unpeated malted barley.  I am curious to know how much potential there is for peatier notes to make there way into this unpeated whisky.  I am far removed from an expert in distilling, but most elements in the distillation process are frequently cleaned and sanitized— so the only place I can think of where some of the slightly peaty/salty notes could come through are in the cask, assuming of course that these are mostly refill casks.  

A good point of comparison as to how a peated whisky cask can effect an unpeated whisky may be Kavalan’s Peaty Cask.  The fruity unpeated Kavalan spirit actually manages to pick up a number of smokey, roasty, caramelization notes just from the refill cask.  So that could be what is going on here as well; refill casks imparting just enough salty iodine and mineral notes to compliment the fruity citrus spirit.

No matter how the flavor was achieved, this bottle was excellent and left me a bit more keen on Caol Ila than I had been before.