Posts Tagged “Caol Ila”

Big Peat Christmas 2015 Edition – The Cask Strength Peat Monster….

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Big Peat Christmas 2015 Edition – The Cask Strength Peat Monster….

I visited Douglas Laing in Glasgow the other week. I will have a full report of the most enjoyable visit, but for today I wanted to review the Christmas edition of Big Peat, out every year for the holidays at Cask Strength. This year there were two important developments, both of which were mentioned on this blog,…

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Fèis Ìle Caol Ila Open day – Tasting the 2014 Fèis Ìle Bottling

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Fèis Ìle Caol Ila Open day – Tasting the 2014 Fèis Ìle Bottling

It seems that for 2015 Diageo decided to make another use of their Distiller’s Reserve casks and do a triple maturation: First standard casks,  then using the DE casks (PX for Lagavulin and Moscatel for Caol Ila) for a second  maturation and “old oak puncheons”  for a third gentle maturation. I’m not really sure what…

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Caol Ila 25 – Maturity Suits this Dram Well!

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Caol Ila 25 – Maturity Suits this Dram Well!

Caol Ila (which means “The sound of Islay” in Gaelic) is one of the main signature malts in the Diageo blends, but not only as a peated whisky. We all know that Caol Ila produces unpeated whisky, as there’s a (now) annual release of this unpeated whisky as part of the annual Special Releases by…

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Big Peat: Tasting Notes for a Blended Malt that is a Brand

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Big Peat: Tasting Notes for a Blended Malt that is a Brand

Despite it being 24°C in Tel Aviv, and winter seeming to be worlds away, it’s deep winter in most of the Northern hemisphere and everybody is gearing up for Christmas (or Hanukkah). Nothing spells winter more than a nice peated whisky, and so we check out the most recent addition to Israel’s whisky scene, Big Peat…

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The Lost Blend Whisky Tasting Notes – Clynelish, Allt-a-Bhainne and Caol Ila Vatted Malt

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The Lost Blend Whisky Tasting Notes – Clynelish, Allt-a-Bhainne and Caol Ila Vatted Malt

My fascination with vatted malts is something I have written about before, and John Glaser at Compass Box has really taken malt vatting (or malt blending, as it should be officially called) to an art form, combining breakthrough production methods with tenacious talent (which in blending is probably 95% methodical experimentation an patience) and great whisky sourcing…

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