The Malt Cask

Caol Ila has been my first proper single malt and it still holds a special place in with whisky cabinet. The 12 has always been a benchmark for me, the Distiller's Edition for something a little sweeter and the 18 a bit of a treat. I have just managed to (finally) get hold of the 25 and have been exploring many independent bottles of Caol Ila too. I have tried Caol Ila matured in ex-Bourbon, ex-Sherry, ex-Moscatel casks, so when Whisky Broker releases 3 casks of Caol Ila aged in 3 different Red wine barriques, I knew I had to pick up some. I actually bought 2 bottles from 2 different casks. As for Whisky Broker, I love their bottling philosophy as there is no nonsense packaging or labelling, it is all about the whisky, sold at a very reasonable price too! What's not to like here?! So what about this bottle? The whisky was aged for 9 years in an ex-red wine barrique (Nb 300755). It was filled on 05/12/2010 and bottled on 06/05/2020, of course with no chillfiltration or colouring...

  Back to Islay today with a recent release from Morrison Distillers, the Mac-Talla Mara. After a bit of a revamp in their range, Morrison distillers portfolio grew with the introduction of the Mac-Talla brand with three releases so far in the range, the Terra (‘earth’) bottled at 46%, the Mara (‘sea’) bottled at the cask strength of 58.2%, and the brand new Strata (15 years old, 46% with a mix of bourbon and sherry casks)  Mac-Talla means ‘echo’ in Scottish Gaelic and it focuses on Islay single malts, renewing the link the Morrison family have had with the island for generations. The shape of the label used on both the Terra and the Mara also echo the old ferry tickets on the way to Islay. But for now, let’s focus on the bottle of Mara. From what I know about the whisky, it is between 4 and 15 years old with mainly 6/7/8 years old at its core. It is peated to 23/25 ppm and was aged exclusively in ex-bourbon cask. Like with the rest of the range, it is uncoloured and unchillfi...

You might have realised that Caol Ila is probably my favourite Scottish distillery and as over 6.5 million liters of spirit are produced there every year, there is no shortage of casks for independent bottlers either and so plenty of indie bottles of Caol Ila for us to choose from. This one is from one of the most reputable bottlers: Gordon and Macphail. It is part of their Connoisseurs Choice range (which had a bit of a revamp since i purchased this bottle). This is not a single cask release but a vatting of whisky distilled in 2004, aged in 1st-fill ex-Bourbon barrels and bottled in 2018 by G&M. So a 14 year-old Caol Ila with no extra finish on it. Sounds like a very good start... As mentioned above, the whisky was distilled in 2004 and bottled in 2018 at 46%, without chill filtration or colouring. The whisky is a nice straw colour! Nose: Herby and smoky with some sweetness. Thyme, bay leaves, some eucalyptus, honey, vanilla, smoked meat, salt and dried apricots. What a start! P...

Ever hear of Féis Ile? It is a bit like Mecca for peat-heads. It is a whisky festival which takes place every year in May on Islay. Each day of the week sees a distillery opening its doors to thousands of peat enthusiasts, with music, food and of course a lot of whisky. It is also the opportunity for distilleries to release festival-exclusive bottles which tend to disappear off the shelves at the speed of light. However, how many of these bottles get opened? I'd say certainly not the majority. These bottles are generally 'limited' to 'very limited' releases which are only available from the distillery during the festival so it attracts many investors and flippers (people who buy to sell straight away) who buy these with only one hope: a good return on investment, short or long term. I went to Islay a few years ago and loved the peace and quiet of it. I would be interested in being there during Féis Ile, but it is bound to be a completely different experience, and I ...

Back into full bottle reviews after a couple of samples, and what a bottle! Caol Ila 12 is the bottle which properly started me on my whisky journey and still one of my favourite today. But I have already reviewed Caol Ila 12 before so it is about time I upgrade and move on to Caol Ila 18! I have always thought Caol Ila was the most underrated distillery on Islay, but I think things are changing and even if the distillery is the biggest producer on the island, demand (and prices) for older bottles of Caol Ila is soaring. In my opinion, the single malt produced at Caol Ila is not as pungent as the one produced by the 3 peat power houses (Laphroaig, Ardbeg and Lagavulin). It is more nuanced being what I love to call a 'salty peat' Islay malt. So what about the 18? Like with the 12, I guess the 18 is aged in ex-American oak. Unfortunately it is chillfiltered, coloured and bottled at 43%, so is the experience still here? Nose: Sweet and smoky, some tropical fruit a...

I have realised I have not posted anything on the blog for a month now, so it is about time I do something about it. As I attended a tasting session yesterday evening, I thought that would be a good way to get back into it. As usual, the tasting took place at the Whisky Shop Manchester and the theme for the night was "Peated whisky". Now for people who say they don't like peated whisky, they should really say they don't like noticeably peated whisky as pretty much every single whisky is peated to a certain extend (unless clearly labelled "unpeated" on the bottle) Of course in lots of single malts, it is barely noticeable. We had 6 bottles on the line up and tasted them as follow: 1.   Inchgower 2008 , single cask bottled in 2016 by Hunter Laing, First Editions series, 46%. Nose and palate were very spirit driven in my mind, I could really tell it was quite a young whisky, lots of fresh citrus, spices and biscuit notes. Not my favourite o...

I wanted to try something different today. I realised that I now have quite a few whisk(e)y bottles opened (28 currently) and I have been getting familiar with the different flavours that they all have to offer, so I thought about looking at what would happen if I started mixing some together to create my very own malt blend. I must say I have no definite idea of what I want to create and what proportions it would take to reach any particular flavour. All I am using is my own knowledge and judgment of what could potentially work together. I also know that in order to blend different malts successfully, I would need to give the spirits time to properly marry together but 20/30 minutes is probably all I am going to give them before I give it a nose and a taste.  For the first one, I decided to use the GlenDronach I reviewed yesterday and add some Caol Ila 12 to it, to try to mix sweet sherry and salty peat. So only two single malts to begin with. These are the proportions I went f...

To some people, peaty whiskies are disgusting and they all taste the same. So tonight I decided to have a closer look at peaty whisky, Islay drams in particular, to see if the peat taste is the same in the many different bottles available. I therefore tasted 5 (small) drams one after the other so see how they compared. I have personally always enjoyed peat but I do tend to take my time with each dram and do not always spend an evening solely with peaty whiskies, hence the idea of sampling several whiskies side by side. I went for 5 bottles which are pretty much the entry dram from each of the 5 distilleries: Bowmore -  12 , 40% Caol Ila -  12 , 43% Kilchoman -  Machir Bay , 46% Lagavulin -  16 , 43% Laphroaig -  Quarter Cask , 48% Here is what I found out after my 5 samples: Bowmore : The peat is quite sweet and fruity with hints of exotic fruit. Caol Ila : The peat is warmer and saltier (the saltiness of the dram is what struck me since ope...

Last November, we decided with a few friends to organise a whisky trip to Islay during the Easter weekend. Even if I will have the two weeks following that weekend off, some of the people I am going with will be back at work on the Tuesday, so we decided to head North on the Thursday afternoon, hop on the ferry Friday morning and head back to Manchester on the Monday. This means our trip will be rather short, and it left me the tricky task of organising our time as best as possible. Looking on several websites and forums, I have found some information about people who have already been, but often, it tended to be answers to specific questions, that is why I thought I would share my experience. Today is therefore going to be about the organisation of the trip and I will update you on the actual visit probably when I am back after Easter. So as I mentioned before, our starting point was as follow: -5 people going to Islay  -leaving Manchester on the Thursday afternoon  ...

As my birthday was last week, I decided to treat myself on Saturday night with a ticket to the Whisky shop Old and Rare tasting session. £40 (members' discount included) sounds a bit steep, but we ended up trying whiskies I would not buy or if I did, I'm not sure I would dare open. I will write about it in more detail in a future post but the reason why I mentioned it is that I didn't leave the evening empty-handed... I have been looking for an independent single-cask bottling of Caol Ila for a while. I looked into some of the Gordon and MacPhail bottling including the 2004 cask strength but decided to wait and see what else was available, particularly for slightly older Caol Ila. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Caol Ila is one of my favourite distilleries and when I realised the Whisky shop had just received a new addition to their stock, I thought I had to give it a try. It wasn't on the list of the Old and Rare we tried and looking online, there isn't anythi...

Caol Ila 12 is the second bottle of single malt I ever bought. As I have already mentioned, I wanted to increase the peat level slightly from my first bottle -Bowmore Small batch. Caol Ila wasn't a name I was familiar with until I started looking at other peaty bottles. And if you're not too much into whisky, I doubt you will know it either. You might however be aware of Johnnie Walker, one of the leading whisky brands in the world (blended whisky) and if you've ever tried the black label, you will have drunk some Caol Ila. In fact, 95% of the whisky Caol Ila produce goes into blended whisky and therefore only the remaining 5% end up bottled as single malt. What a shame, because for me, Caol Ila is one of the best.  Caol Ila distillery is located on the North East coast of Islay, just North of Port Askaig. A bit more about the 12 years then: It isn't as pale a whisky as the Kornog we tried last time but it will have had some colouring and the whisky will also ...