52,5°
Distillery : Caol Ila - Islay
Refill Hogshead
Independent Bottling
By Elixir Distillers
Limited Edition
Single Cask
Bottled in 2025
Unchillfiltered, Uncoloured
Peated around 35 ppm
This Caol Ila spent 18 years, eight months and one day in a Refill Hogshead, then it was bottled and 271 bottles invaded the stores. It is not sure to be Cask Strength because this series is bottled at 'optimum strength', but not necessarily Cask Strength. On whiskybase, there is another cask, the 3073546, bottled the same day, but I think this is a mistake, this other cask doesn't exist. However, I wrote the name of the cask to avoid any confusion.
Let's Taste It :
Very full-bodied peat, quite powerful, dry and herbaceous, thick smoke, crystalline iodine, sea kelp, sea foam, sea air. Behind this, light vanilla, almond paste, whipped cream and a hint of lemon zest. Light woodiness, shortbread biscuits, roasted hazelnuts. On the palate, it is creamy, vanilla and lychees, milk chocolate, white grapes, a few mirabelle plums. Rough spices, black pepper, cloves. Long finish, where peat and smoke come to the fore again, sea salt, seaweed, scallops, oak bark, lemon pulp.
In Short,
I found it a little unbalanced, with the peat and smoke seeming very strong, especially on the nose, but perhaps that was because the bottle had just been opened. Overall, it lacks originality. It's a classic Caol Ila, with a profile we've seen many times before, where age doesn't play much of a role in refining the more tempestuous flavours. It's still very good, and I'll always be a fan of this distillery, but at this age you expect something more, which I didn't find here. That said, the price is still decent.
Score : 89
To Be Listened While Sipping :
Merciful Nuns - The Pyramid
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