Tuesday could see Mark treat us to a novel malt whisky from Down Under, accompanied by a probing interview of a craft distiller.
Friday would return to Scotch whisky again, with Andrew, Evrim, Dora, Jon, or Sam offering their studied consideration of whatever was tickling their fancy at the moment. Or would we travel to the Emerald Isle, with an Irish whiskey reviewed by David? Regardless, Saturday would almost certainly feature an epic piece from Graham about mischief or malfeasance in some corner of the whiskyverse; Sunday, as always, would freshen things up with a Cognac, Mezcal, Rum, or other Malternative, courtesy of John.
I sit and wait patiently until Gmail notifies me that I have a new message. Rarely but not never , the same distillery is reviewed by more than one writer in close cadence.
While my ideal as laid out above would be a site with content as wide-ranging as the world of whiskey more broadly, reality puts me at the whims of whatever our writers want to write about. After all, Scotland while I resided there was the birthplace of my appreciation for neat whisky, and I still look back on those formative drams with a great deal of fondness.
This one is brought to us by Chapter 7 , an independent Swiss bottler. This sample is a generous gift from Graham. On the nose: A perfect, briny and smoky blast of classic Caol Ila aromas makes way for a tart lime note that has an effervescent feel to it, in the manner of Sprite soda pop. Time in the glass allows for layers to gradually unfold, with a toffee accent and some buttery oak providing rich and creamy counterpoints to the more austere peat and maritime scents.
A pure sniff of malt shows through here for a moment, a reminder of the relative youth of the whisky, and of the quality of the underlying distillate. There is some herbal spiciness here in the manner of cardamom pods, before the nose ascends to the sweet and citrus-accented airy heights of lemon meringue.
In the mouth: The first kiss is a delightfully brisk marriage of saline and lemon zest. As this moves toward the center of the tongue a very purely ashy note emerges as the dominant flavor, however this has a remarkable freshness to it that prevents it from ever tipping over into stale or unpleasantly acrid territory. A momentary resurgence of that citric bite is once again evinced at the top of the tongue, where the whisky bursts with tart fruit and again becomes effervescent in texture.
The more classically smoky flavors emerge on the finish, though the peat is balanced and well-integrated with a solid note of chocolate. This has everything I look for from modestly aged, independently bottled Caol Ila. It is unmistakably an Islay whisky, with good, pure expressions of the hallmark seaside and peat notes.
More importantly, this poise is maintained from the first whiff to the final drop in the glass; the consistency of the experience throughout is a marvelous thing. While not quite life-changing, this is certainly life-affirming, in the sense of reminding us that there is wonderful Scotch whiskey available without extraordinary financial outlay.
I hope this review and its preamble are at least some reassurance that Malt has not strayed from its Scotch roots either by accident, deliberately, or as part of some nefarious scheme. I cannot foresee the future of the site, however I can promise that it will continue to include Scotch whisky in ample proportions.
So no complaint from me here on the diversity of the reviews. I also noticed abit more brandy reviews recently, which happily coincide with my recent interest in them. Hence the lack of interaction and interest. With the big 4 Cognacs being the mass market stuff. But I have no idea what the equivalent of brandy is for the crowd who likes Springbank , which I see to be the middle ground of whisky.
The brandy scene is just a lot less known in Asia. So I get a smaller picture of the scene than what I would prefer. Thanks for the comments, KC. Appreciate your support for and enjoyment of the non-Scotch reviews; there will definitely be plenty more in the future. Scotch is still among my favs but there are plenty of armangnacs, mezcals, brandies, ryes, bourbons etc. Caol Ila 11 years - Caol Ila - Harbourside Brazier. Caol Ila 6 years Caol Ila 8 years - Earth.
Caol Ila 12 years - High Spirits Exclusive. Caol Ila 14 years - Caol Ila 12 years - Cask Strength. Caol Ila 11 years - for The Specialist's North Star Chaos Batch 3.
Caol Ila 10 years - Artist Collective No. Caol Ila 12 years. Caol Ila - The Distillers Edition. Most of these I have tried in bars, samples or at friends houses hence the lack of decent photos, apologies for that! The different areas are considered to have some broad characteristics in common due to various factors such as the locations weather, type of water, etc. Other flavours synonymous with Islays are iodine, seaweed, salt and medicinal type notes.
This is my favourite Islay whisky in this price bracket and one of my favourite single malt scotch whiskies. It has a really maritime quality too with seaweed, Iodine along with great peat smoke. They do a cask strength version of this which is even better but slightly out of the price range we set and the Laphroaig Quarter Cask is also very good. The Lagavulin 16 year old is very smoky but also with some malt, fruit and sherry flavours it really is good.
Be prepared when you take a sip because if you are not there is a good chance it will blow you away with the strength of the peat. There is a fruitiness that underpins the peat and smoke in this dram along with some vanilla and tobacco which makes for an interesting flavour profile.
A really enjoyable whisky that is not too overbearing on the peat. A good one to enjoy in both the summer and winter months.
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