Caol Ila 25 Year

Excellent scotch, perfect. Smoky but its mellowed enough where it's a nice addition and not the focal point. Nice amount of sweetness and a great finish that lingers of peat.

This immediately jumped close to the top of my list of not in the #1 spot. It’s not surprising since I love Islay, Caol Ila, and higher aged expressions. This one is a subtle peat but so expressive and complex. Beautiful!

泥煤 烏梅 草本中藥 香氣濃厚 味道厚實 熱帶水果味濃郁 煙燻尾韻長久

I recently found bottles of this online out of the U.K. for around $110, so I went ahead and stocked up because that’s a fine price for such a well-aged whisky. The only drawbacks I discovered initially were the fact that Diageo blends these down to 43% and they have added color to make each successive vintage as uniform as possible, color wise. I believe they may also be chill-filtered- which begs the question: why Diageo? Why? I recently opened a bottle of the 18 year, peated Caol Ila from 2008 and was utterly blown away. The fact I had multiple bottles of the 25 really piqued my interest and I was dying to know if an additional 7 years in the cask just dialed things up to 11. Spoiler: it did not. Onward, though, this quarter century Caol Ila is a beautiful, deep gold in the taster and appears oily, with thin legs and medium, teardrops on the rim. This bottle was filled in 2007 at the aforementioned 43% ABV. The nose was typical Caol: bbq smoke and sea spray. Light tar and fruity chewing gum notes waft gently from the glass as you spin and get down in there. Some apricot and citrus were coerced out after a lengthy wait. Very nice. The palate was again meaty smoke and salty, biting undertones. This leaves the fruity notes of the 18 year old completely out of the mix. It’s still oily and thick, even with the added water dilution, and theres very little barrel characteristics or vanilla sweetness. It’s mostly soft and forgiving for a Caol Ila- evidence of the time in the oak. These were probably refilled casks, I’m assuming. The finish is medium to long, oily and smoky. The salt cuts into the tongue and throat as it dries away and I can’t help but think it needs a healthy ABV kick. The final wafts of smoke return as though you’ve extinguished a campfire and just stood overtop of it and inhaled the final fumes deeply. It’s still quite satisfying. Overall, it’s not the 18 year I just fell in love with, but it is still a fine example of a well-matured Islay whisky. If you like your peated whisky with a seaside kick to go along with an impressive age statement- this is your whisky. If you can find it for $111 like I did, well that’s like hitting the bonus on a Vegas slot machine. You win twice. 4.25 stars with a bonus .25 for price and relative availability/attainability. Cheers, my friends.