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This lil treat was bottled specially for CHAS (Children's Hospices Across Scotland). It's also the second North Star charity bottling we've seen over the last few months. Gotta hand it to Iain Croucher and the North Star team; they're putting their money where their mouth is.
The outturn was 600 bottles from a Refill Sherry Butt, but you'd be hard pressed to consider this much of a sherried malt. What it is, however, is a tasty and surpisingly balanced young Islay malt. The kind of dram peatheads spend their days hunting for.
Natural colour, non-chill filtered and bottled at 51%.
700ml mlCurt's Tasting Note
Nose: Yup, that's young Caol Ila, alright. Very coastal and saline. Lemon, lime, even a faint touch of orange. Creamy vanilla notes with a wee bit of ground almond. Knowing it's from a Sherry Butt, I can kinda see a bit of cask influence, but it's definitely faint (I mean...this is the colour of a urine sample after all!). A bit ashy and peppery. As a colleague mentioned, it noses young, but not spirity. That's a hard line to walk.
Palate: Like swallowing a mouthful of the Atlantic to put out a smouldering mouthful of peat. Charred scallop with fennel. Slightly burnt sugar cookies. Horhound candy. A bit boozy, maybe a hint of white wine. And almonds or marzipan again. late midpalate has a bit of charry meat bark.
Finish: Long, herbaceous, saline and slightly grippy at the back end. Ultimately, a lovely young malt from the juggernaut of Islay. I didn't expect to like this as much as I do.
The Following was written by Andrew Ferguson for the June 2018 edition of Celtic Life Magazine.
Scotland’s Caol Ila distillery is named for the body of water it gazes across, the majestic ‘Sound of Islay’ - a narrow but turbulent ribbon of water separating the islands of Islay and Jura.
The distillery is built almost precariously into the rocks of a steep embankment on a tiny bay. As with all of Islay’s distilleries, Caol Ila had to be supplied exclusively by sea until the middle of the 2oth century. Ships full of barley and oak barrels from the mainland sought a safe anchor from the tempestuous North Atlantic sea. They would return to the mainland with casks of the peaty, smoky, single malt whisky which Islay is still famous for. Then, as today, the vast majority of these casks were destined for blending.
Caol Ila - pronounced “cul-ee-lah” - is a facility full of contradictions. It is, by some margin, the largest of Islay’s eight active distilleries, but it also produces one of Scotland’s most dependable whiskies. Whisky Advocate Magazine refers to the distillery as ‘Mr. Consistent’ - a reflection on how few poor bottlings and casks of the whisky are in the marketplace. Is the size of the distillery and its efficiencies counterintuitively an asset? Perhaps, but these factors also make it one of the least interesting distilleries to visit on Islay, with one crucial footnote; the view from the Still Room at Caol Ila is unrivalled by any other distillery in Scotland, and possibly the world.
The Still Room’s floor-to-ceiling windows offer a panoramic view across the Sound of Islay to the dramatic Isle of Jura beyond. Whales, dolphins and sea otters all frolic in the waters out front, while the sun and clouds take turns revealing and obscuring the wilds of Jura.
In addition to the distilleries, there is much to see on Islay. One would be hard pressed, in fact, to see all eight of the island’s active distilleries in three or four days. I am torn when asked to recommend which distilleries visitors should see; in a perfect world the answer would be all of them. Islay is, after all, Mecca for disciples of malt whisky gospel. But when a distillery needs to be cut, Coal Ila is often the first on the chopping block. Other than the view, the distillery isn’t all that interesting compared with its neighbours.
Although its output is two and three times that of the next largest distilleries, almost none of Caol Ila’s production is matured on the island. More than 99 per cent of its whisky matures in warehouses on the mainland.
The vast majority of Caol Ila’s production is earmarked for blends - most importantly the world’s second bestselling blended scotch whisky, Johnny Walker Black Label. While less than 5 per cent of the distillery’s production is set aside for bottling as single malt by the owners, Diageo, a quirk of the Scotch whisky industry’s supply chains has made Caol Ila the most widely available Islay single malt from independent bottlers. Whisky companies trade casks with one another to add complexity to their blends. Some of these casks find their way into the hands of independent bottlers; Gordon MacPhail, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Port Askaig, and others regularly bottle excellent single cask and small-batch bottlings of Caol Ila.
If you make the trek to Islay (and you should), and have the time, be sure to pop by Caol Ila to admire the view. Whether on tour from the Still Room or from the pier in front of the distillery, the views of the Sound of Islay and Jura - regardless of the weather - will take your breath away. More importantly, try every bottling of the whisky you can find; few, if any, of ‘Mr. Consistent’ are likely to disappoint!