Caol Ila 18 Year Old 1996 Old Malt Cask Hunter Laing

Since the brothers Fred and Stuart Laing each went their own way – in which Fred kept the company Douglas Laing and brought his daughter Cara and son-in-low Chris Leggat on board and Stuart Laing started a new company Hunter Laing with his two sons – the Old Malst Cask belongs to the latter. The whisky under this banner is traditionally bottled at 50% ABV, so the same is true for this Caol Ila 18 Year Old from 1996.

Oh, yes! This nose is great. Typical top notch Coal Ila. Think lemon, seaweeds, wet rocks, grapefruit, stockfish, plasticine, lime, cow stable, goat cheese and vanilla. In any random order, for no two whiffs of this stuff are the same. The only thing lacking is smoke. This one is sweet and salty, but there is absolutely no smoke on the nose.

It is surprisingly gentle on the palate. More of the same with a grainy dirtiness on the tongue, if you get my meaning. Now the smoke does develop, but it also turns very, very sweet. A big dollop of honey and quite some vanilla custard. Really. But also really good!

The finish is medium long on nothing more (nor less) than sweet smoke.

Boy, this was good. A great battle between sweet and salt on the nose and palate, but in the end (get it?) the salt had to yield.

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