North Star Tasting with Iain Croucher at The Oak Barrel, 11 May 2023, Whisky #6 Nose: Sweet, full peat aroma – smoky, warm, rich and earthy. Tobacco and leather, ham and beef ribs in a smoker. There are iodine and maritime notes in the background but these just provide structure and everything is very relaxed and soft. Palate: Big, opulent, sweet arrival with lots of warming peat smoke. No spice notes, no bright citrus, no brine – the flavours are all about red fruits, dark dried fruits, smoked meats and sweet umami sauces (in the tasting notes Iain mentions “sweet condensed balsamic vinegar” and he’s dead right). The texture is velvety and full. Finish: Medium/long. Peat, earth, tobacco. This is somewhat unusual for a Caol Ila (at least in my experience) as I can’t recall ever having had one with such a plush character, even when finished in a red-wine or PX sherry cask. Technically you could reasonably say this is completely out of balance, but it is unbalanced in a fun way. There is nothing bad in the profile, it’s just madly skewed towards the cask with the distillate providing only framework and no top-notes. I’m not sure of the original casking (it was most likely a refill hogshead) but the finish was in wet ex-port octaves, which contributed masses of sweet fortified wine character. (I noted that a lot of the recent North Star expressions have a small-cask port or PX finish - Iain must have bought a truckload of ex-wine octaves around a decade ago!). I enjoyed it very much, enough to buy a bottle on the night, but then I like my whisky to be a little crazy sometimes. If you prefer your Caol Ila more “au natural” with straight-up bourbon maturation so you can smell and taste the seaside you’ll probably hate this, but if you enjoy the likes of Laphroaig PX Cask or Arran Port Cask finish you may like this just as much (although it is sweeter than either of those). “Very Good” : 86/100 (4 stars)