Caol Ila 10 Year Old 2010 Old Particular for Our Belgian Friends

This Caol Ila was bottled by Douglas Laing in their well-known Old Particular series, but stands out for two reasons. Firstly, you can see the Belgian tricolour on the label, because it is exclusively bottled 'for our Belgian friends' and secondly it is a single cask that was bottled at cask strength. The refill hogshead thus yielded 296 bottles. It is very pale, by the way.

Stockfish, olive oil, fish oil, honey, vanilla, licorice, a lost lime, green garden herbs... This Caol Ila is a bit atypical, but very, very good! I wonder if importer Cinoco chose the cask, or Douglas Laing themselves. Anyway, the nose is already outstanding.

Nice and oily on the tongue, but immediately very sweet. Vanilla leads, followed by a soft sweet and sour touch of agrums and peat. Nice and spicy, though. A lot of pepper and baker's spices. Then the maritime features come to the fore and the smoke development becomes very large. The whole mouth gets nice and warm. A winter dram pur sang. Delicious.

The finish lasts longer than an episode of Case de Papel (because I'm already working on the next episode and I'm still tasting it). Excellent!

Great cask selection. A relatively sweet, but nice and spicy and powerful Caol Ila. Can’t go wrong. Available around 95 EUR. My 150th Caol Ila! But who's counting?

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