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Caol Ila 12 Year Old 2008 The Whisky Jury

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@markjedi1Review by @markjedi1

21st Aug 2020

1

  • Nose
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  • Taste
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  • Finish
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  • Balance
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  • Overall
    88

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Belgian bottler The Whisky Jury does not have many releases on its resumé so far, but what they’ve released has been great so far. In less than a year’s time Joeri has built up an ironclad and well deserved reputation, which means his bottles sell out very quickly. Thus I missed out on his Caol Ila 35 Year Old 1983 upon its release and it took a lot of cloak and dagger (yeah, right) to obtain a bottle at last. And look: this year he again releases a cask from my favorite Islay distillery, albeit much younger. This single cask from 2008 was bottled at cask strength after 12 years of maturation. Looking forward to this one!

Young, powerful nose on ashes, citrus (mandarin!) and a truckload of seaweeds. Some mud and diesel fumes. Wonderfully dirty, just the way I like it. Stock fish and mud, really! Great.

Oh, oh, OH! The nose was great, but the palate is outstanding! Perfect strength. The alcohol integrated beautifully, so your tasted buds get to concentrate on all the wonderful sweet notes of vanilla, candy floss and honey that are opposite the salty notes of brackish water, oyster sap and seaweeds. The smoke becomes very big and keeps things cozily warm. As dirty as was the nose, so clean it is on the palate. This is Pleasure with capital P.

The long finish is a veritable battle between sweet and salt, ending in a draw. But what a match!

I am happy to perform a #happydance for this one, mind you. But alas also completely sold out. Darn, you cannot even blink when a release is announced. If you do, you’ll miss it. High time for Joeri to start a system with subscriptions, I say…

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