Caol Ila 15 Year Unpeated Style (2014 Special Release)

Aroma has a lot of leather and minerals. Some caramel in there. Palate starts out sweet and very saline, with a transition to something like anchovy, lemon zest and pepper. Light bodied, not as hot as the abv would suggest. Pretty interesting pour, probably not for everybody - not sure I've had a scotch this salty.

Nose: Very spirity to start with but after resting for 15 minutes you can start to make out the aromas behind the ethanol. Cereal, bready, waxy and herbal notes. Some hints of baked banana, honey, orchard fruit and vanilla. Over considerable time the nose mellows and gains a creamy butterscotch aroma. Palate: Blisteringly hot arrival. Intensely spicy (hot cinnamon, black pepper and hot ginger) and also heat from the high ethanol presence. It's like chewing a handful of nails. The development is mainly on unripe fruits and peanut brittle. The texture is OK but not notable. There is an unfortunate sour note that develops in the late palate and persists into the finish. Finish: Long. Hot spiced fruit that lingers on a sour note and a hint of salt. There’s an almost mescal quality to the aftertaste. A hot and totally uncompromising style of whisky. It is on the edge of being so challenging that it is unpleasant. I found this too unfriendly to take neat and had to add quite a lot of water. Dropping it down to around 40% made it easier to taste but the profile remained the same – hot, hot, hot and hard. Tasted from a 30ml sample I’ve had laying around for a while. I would not buy a bottle of this, particularly given the price. While it is very well made, clean and crisp the character is not at all to my taste and to be honest I thought it was a bit of a mess. “Average” : 78/100 (2.75 stars)

(Pinkernells Islay Tasting Event) This one was the strangest of the six pours during an Islay tasting event. One of my all time favorite whiskies of all time is a Caol Ila 14y cask strength refill American hogshead single cask. This one here is a Caol Ila 15y cask strength refill American & European hogshead but not peated. And in the end end I was left disappointed. The nose is pretty basic with honey and apples, a bid of nutty marzipan and vanilla and a bid of pears. But everything mixed up and not very intense. The palate then is very mixed-fruity sweet with not much else. If you add water to bring it down from its whopping 63 % ABV to around 55 % you get a bid of cucumber as well as cooked egg-white. Strange. I am pretty sure the experience wasn’t as great as it would have been if I haven’t had 3 other very different drams (including strong peated ones) before. Maybe I will have a chance to try it again on a fresh palate some day. But I won’t be actively looking for it.

like driving spikes into my soft palate, then a warm, sweet aftertaste. the only sweet whisky i’ve enjoyed so far that isn’t also quite peaty. i’d buy a bottle but not before a peated imo

Whisky and fire. Very nice, soft mellow intro with oh my god I swallowed fire.