Caol Ila 1996 Kingsbury 22 Year Old / 55.3%
Tasted neat, then with bottled water
This Caol Ila was distilled in 1996, laid into sherry butt cask #795, where it rested for 22 years before giving 191 bottles. The tasting notes on the label read “Copper, ember, oily, bacon, maple, unending, iconic.”
- Color: tawny (1.4)
- Nose: iodine and seaweed, peat smoke, burnt caramel, black licorice, and dank fall leaves
- Taste: rich sherry, oily apple and peach cobbler, asphalt, pulled pork, and acetone
- Finish: long, still intensely peaty, barbeque smoke, and salt spray
You don’t often see rough, rumbly 20-year old Caol Ilas from ex-Sherry butts. This walks the fine line of retaining Caol Ila character while adding in some considerable sweetness from the sherry butt. What’s missing is a feeling of age, because of the bigger surface area / maybe refill wood, this tastes more like a 12-year old Caol Ila with sherry.
The Whisky Roundabout has a bottle for 420 euros.
Rating: 6/10
