Caol Ila 11 yo 2012/2023 (48%, Elixir Distillers ‘The Single Malts of Scotland Reserve Casks’, four refill butts)
Colour: pale gold. Nose: petrol, mineral salts and a rather salty, green and grassy quality that does suggest some sherry casks deep in the mix. Pure peat, mercurochrome and seawater. Pretty exemplary! Mouth: lemons and limes and peat ashes galore! Also cornichons in brine, capers and other pickling juice vibes. There’s still a very nicely salty, chiselled and slightly earthy sherry ‘feeling’ about it, but it still shows abundant distillate DNA front and centre. Finish: medium, back on salted almonds, wood ashes, kelp and tarry smoke. Comments: I’d simply add that it’s a rather fat and punchy wee Caol Ila, despite the rather clever reduced strength. 
SGP: 467 - 87 points.

Caol Ila 9 yo 2013 (57.2%, Scotch Malt Whisky Society 53.457 ‘Coal shards on clotted cream’, Oloroso sherry finish) 
457 casks of Caol Ila by the SMWS alone! At this rate they will get to 1000 before Whiskyfun! Colour: grubby gold. Nose: a richer and more gingery sherry influence in this one. Rather a lot of spicy, dark grained breads, smoked German dark beers, salted liquorice, camphor and anchovy paste. Big, thick, chunky whisky! With water: camphor, tar liqueur, pine needles and cough syrup - it works well! Mouth: very punchy arrival! Malt vinegar, charred wood, iodine and tarry rope. Also some black peppercorns and feelings of roof pitch and kerosine. The relative activeness of the oak is evident but it feels reasonably well in check by this pretty monstrously peaty distillate. With water: very nicely salty, earthy and with a restrained gamey note too now. Also tons of seawater, cayenne pepper, aniseed and horseradish. A total beast that would headbutt any Octomore under the table! Finish: long, very tarry, petrolic, peaty and medicinal, also extremely salty and drying now too. Comments: an uncomplicated, no holds barred Caol Ila that is really quite extreme in places. It feels like the sherry casks was pretty active but that it simply got relentlessly beaten down by this massive Caol Ila distillate. Seems like they upped the peat level a bit in these vintages? 
SGP: 468 - 85 points.

Caol Ila 9 yo 2013/2022 (57.3%, The Whisky Exchange for The Whisky Show, cask #316159, refill hogshead)
I’m laughably late with this, not that we aim to always try bottlings at the point of release mind you. Colour: gold. Nose: rounder, oilier with a more complex interplay of peat and medicinal aspects, a richer smokiness and subtler notes of sandalwood, gorse and beach pebbles. So different from the SMWS. With water: a tad simpler now, with pure seawater, green olive and wood ashes. Mouth: creamy and mouth-filling arrival, lots of pine wood, camphor, pure peat smoke, black olives in brine, BBQ-charred shellfish and various umami, salty and briny impressions. Nicely tight and cohesive Caol Ila. With water: again this feeling of roundness and cohesiveness, creamy texture, with pure peat smoke, dry phenolics, tar and lots of vigorous salty notes. Finish: quite long, very coastal and powerfully salty, dry smoke, anchovy paste and antiseptic. Comments: I think I preferred this one neat, but overall another very good one with a nicely direct and singular profile. 
SGP: 366 - 86 points. 

Caol Ila 9 yo 2013/2023 (59.6%, Watt Whisky, hogshead, 306 bottles)
Let’s see what the Watts have been up to… Colour: pale white wine. Nose: very close to the raw distillate now, really on petrol, puffer smoke, seawater, freshly kilned malt and wet linens. In time a building medicinal profile full of iodine and TCP. With water: a slightly broader smokiness which adds some complexity, more feelings of pure kiln air, umami seasonings and beach sand. Mouth: very pure, sharp, chiselled and centred around seawater, pickling brine, lemon juice and wood ashes. Lots of beach stuff too, such as crushed seashells, rock pool vibes and wet seaweed. With water: cider apple, more briny things, still hugely salty, some traces of fennel seed and smoked olive oil. Superb! Finish: long, sharp, full of mineral salts, lemon juice, olive brine and a tar-flecked smokiness. Comments: It’s raw and even a tad brutal in places, but this feels like this sort of rather clever bottle that will become really brilliant if left to sit in a dark cupboard for a few decades. Extremely classy Caol Ila. 
SGP: 467 - 88 points. 

Caol Ila 35 yo 1984/2020 (47.5%, The Golden Cask, #CM260, bourbon barrel, 204 bottles)
Colour: pale gold. Nose: one of those totally gorgeous and really idiosyncratic old Caol Ilas that reek of gently smoked green teas, honey, eucalyptus oils, tiger balm and tar liqueurs. Indestructible whisky! Develops even more intricately along these lines of honey and subtle medicinal balms and herbs, also a very tiny farmyard aspect emerges with time. Bergamot, wormwood and woodruff! Mouth: peated honey if such a thing existed. Great arrival, very tarry, peppery and surprisingly still very peaty with good power and attack. Also preserved lemons, lapsing souchong tea, more eucalyptus and tea tree oil vibes and more matcha and even wee tropical elements. Finish: long, beautifully elegant peat smoke notes, bound up with crystallised, dried out old honeys, pressed flowers and more smoked herbs and teas. Comments: quite amazing freshness, brightness and power, while also very evidently being an older whisky in the very best sense. Caol Ila from these vintages seems to have some kind of immutable stamina. 
SGP: 566 - 91 points.

Caol Ila 36 yo 1984/2020 (53.1%, Kingsbury's for Auld Alliance and Club Qing, sherry butt, cask #2752)
Colour: deep tawny amber. Nose: raisins, tar liqueur, dark honeys, plum sauce, very weighted with camphor and salted treacle. A real sense of texture, like nosing molasses with many additional and complex impressions of salted liquorice, aniseed liqueur, walnut wine and smoked artichokes.  Heavy but also a little playful at the same time, which makes it very entertaining. With water: full of bitter herbs and old school medicinal qualities, strong herbal teas, cloves, cheng pi orange peels and pure tar extract. Mouth: very tarry, phenolic and drying, with an amazingly salty and umami savoury side. Also a lot of very beefy and gamey sherry qualities. Old leather, camphor, fir wood resins, beeswax, celery salty, cocktail bitters and artichoke liqueur. An old spirit that also converges with old rum in some ways as well, with these almost funky qualities. With water: get simpler now, really into herbal bitters, salt-baked vegetables, medicinal roots and tinctures and a very peppery, drying herbal peat. Finish: long, herbal bitters again, more artichoke, tar and herbal liqueurs and about a litre of Maggi! Comments: -
SGP: 376 - 89 points.

Caol Ila 40 yo 1982/2022 (49.5%, The Whisky Exchange ‘The Decades’, two hogsheads, 286 bottles)
Colour: gold. Nose: similar ballpark to the Golden Cask, but more accented by sandalwood, olive oils, boot polish and cedar wood. It’s also showing this superb combination of waxes, citrus and honey that you find in Clynelish of similar pedigree. Also still some wonderful coastal freshness in the form of crushed seashells, beach pebbles and impressions of white coastal flowers. Undimmed and irrefutable! Mouth: superb arrival, medicines galore, along with aged mead, citrus liqueurs, lanolin, grassy olive oil, pine wood resins and more of these assertive and wonderful notes of matcha and green tea with lemon. It’s also got this stunning and wonderfully tense interplay between coastal notes that go towards umami and savoury with these salty qualities, think Maggi, soy sauce and nori. But also a fruitiness that veers between green and yellow and exotic variously. One of those very old peated malts that makes you really think almost philosophically about peat as an ingredient. Finish: wonderfully long, salty, honeyed, waxy and full of peat phenolics, old medical tinctures, crystallised citrus rinds and dried herbs. Comments: a whisky that is simultaneously humbling, complex, fresh and vital, old and decadent and outrageously quaffable. Many boxes ticked here! 
SGP: 665 - 92 points. 

Caol Ila 13 yo 1977/1990 (63.8%, Gordon & MacPhail for Turatello, Italy)
An old rarity from the warehouses of G&M for those ahead of the curve Italians… Colour: deep gold. Nose: very petrolic and ‘greasy’ in the best of senses. It has some of these terrific briny and seawater qualities that the more recent vintages possess, only there’s this added feeling of fatness here. Sheep wool oils, tarry rope, gherkins, anchovy paste, tiny hints of salted honey and TCP! With water: deeply into anchovy, sardines in smoked olive oil, capers mashed into a salsa verde with malt vinegar and pure seawater and lemon juice. Mouth: probably some sherry influence at play as there’s this stunning salted almond and smoked kipper combination, along with an earthiness and a rather rich peppery streak as well. More of these wonderful vegetable stock, Maggi and smoked artichoke vibes that we often find in these older Caol Ilas. Lashings of tar, medical embrocations and old herbal ointments. With water: terrifically rounded, whole and singular now! Fat, thick peat smoke, tar, black pepper, salted liquorice and big, hearty, briny notes. Finish: very long, with germoline, which feels like very textbook Caol Ila. Also loads more controlled and pin-sharp coastal freshness, salinity and then kippers and smoked olive oil in the aftertaste. Comments: a fascinating glimpse into those later 1970s vintages. Huge whisky, but showing great fatness, control and even a level of ease and drinkability that you don’t always find with peated, high ABV malts. 
SGP: 477 - 91 points. 

Caol Ila 25 yo 1976/2001 (59.9%, Signatory Vintage for LMDW, Straight From The Cask, hogshead, cask #8087, 423 bottles)
There are some stunning casks by Signatory from 1974 and some excellent ones from 1975 but I’m not too sure about 1976, let’s see… Colour: pale gold. Nose: beautiful, bone-dry peat smoke and coastal freshness, very focussed on sea air, beach pebbles, sand, ink, rock pools etc. Also some green olives, dried seaweed, nori and very umami things like Maggi, squid ink and anchovy paste. With water: pristinely salty, briny, drying, coastal, superbly fresh and chiselled. On pink sea salt, crushed aspirin, seawater and olive tapenades. Mouth: excellent arrival, recalls some of the great 1974s with this very oily and petrolic peat profile, while also looking ahead to the 1979s with hints of green tea with lemon, pure matcha and bone-dry smokiness. Probably a style that would inspire Serge to begin mentioning many expensive dry white wines… with water: gains some breadth of peat flavour, becoming a little thicker and deeper with black pepper, smoked olive oil, peppered and smoked mackerels, sardines in oil, pure tar and mercurochrome. Whoever said Caol Ila was a ‘medium’ peated Islay? Finish: wonderfully long, with a brittle, crystalline peat smoke, also more tar, wood ashes, TCP, smoked beers and many more softer coastal impressions that retain freshness. Comments: watch these ‘in between’ vintages, they can be pretty stunning, as is the case here. A different whisky from the 1972, but no less impactful, and almost as brilliant in my wee book. I love the way it simultaneously looks forwards and backwards in terms of distillery character. 
SGP: 466 - 91 points.

Caol Ila 24 yo 1974/1998 (46%, Wilson & Morgan)
Colour: pale straw. Nose: pure, coastal and highly mineral. Wonderfully on crushed seashells, white flowers, chalk, sheep wool and seawater with hints of grapefruit and cider apple. Also some familiar notes of smoked and herbal teas. Charming, fresh and beautifully detailed. Mouth: excellent arrival, on petrol, seawater, green fruits and herbal teas with lemon. Recalls some younger 1979s in some ways. Continues with more grapefruit, lime, smoked cereals and a rather ‘woolly’ smokiness. Gentler than quite a few other 1974s I’ve tasted, but no less charming, perhaps a more sophisticated profile. Finish: long, getting a little heavier and fatter now, some fermentary notes, more cider apple and tarry vibes. Comments: humble, subtle but uber classy and highly pleasurable Caol Ila. 1974 seems to be an almost bullet proof vintage for Caol Ila. 
SGP: 565 - 90 points. 

Caol Ila 21 yo 1974/1995 (58.2%, Cadenhead, Authentic Collection, 75cl)
Colour: bright straw. Nose: yes! This is emblematic of what comes to mind when I think of Caol Ila 1974. Pure, fatty, petrolic power! A big, textural impression of raw, almost grubby peat smoke, oily sheep wool, creosoted fence posts, green peppercorns in brine, wet plaster and beach bonfire ashes. With water: very sharp, chiselled saltiness, pure lemon juice, seawater, gherkins and crushed sardines. Mouth: fantastic, immensely peppery, peaty and tarry arrival that recalls Ardbeg of similar pedigree. Also squid ink, seawater, a waxy quality and lots of smoked olive oil, fresh oysters, tar and iodine. Becoming ashier, drier, brinier and with some big ‘salt and vinegar on chips’ vibes. With water: magnificent oiliness and fatness, terrific and assertive peat flavour, with big flavours of kelp, soy sauce, dried seaweed, iodine and many things such as capers, more gherkins and green olives in brine. Finish: very long, pristinely salty, drying, tarry and with a pure, brilliant, blade-like smokiness. Comments: it’s tempting to draw comparisons with other Islay makes of the era, but these 1974s really do carve their own path. Yet another jewel in the Islay crown from this production era. 
SGP: 366 - 92 points. 

Caol Ila 12 yo (43%, OB, Zenith import, early 1980s)
Colour: white wine. Nose: superbly fresh and medicinal, all on bandages, wet rocks, oysters and citrus juices, matched by green olives and sharper notes of gooseberry and sour Gueuze beers. I also find a lovely heathery smokiness and more medicinal embrocations and sea air. Pristine and beautiful old school Caol Ila. Mouth: amazing richness of peat smoke flavour, really like they’ve captured this ‘head in a kiln’ vibe in distillate form. Superbly silky in texture, wonderfully crisp coastal freshness and then many thicker medicinal things like mercurochrome and TCP. Those green and sharper citrus fruit notes still remain in the background. Finish: good length, back on medicinal notes, coal smoke, a nicely tarry quality and more things like black pepper, iodine and smoked olive oil. Comments: impossible to argue with this, a beautiful and rather less ‘technological’ expression of Caol Ila that displays a deeper and more captivating peat profile than contemporary Caol Ila often does with its rather more ashy and brutalist character. Also, love the tension between medicines and seashore. 
SGP: 456 - 91 points.

Caol Ila 1972/1987 (40%, JAS Gordon & Co, Auxil import)
Colour: pale gold. Nose: such a different profile of peat than would come later in 1974, this is just much fatter, dirtier, oilier and far more organic with thick notes of dried herbs, hessian cloth, petrol and resinous fir wood. One of those aromas that really implies an impression of texture and breadth in the distillate. There’s also many marine influences with suggestions of coastal air, creel nets, tarred rope and black olives in brine. Wonderful, very old style and very particularly ‘old Caol Ila’ aroma. Mouth: as so often with these batches, even at 40% and over three decades in glass, this remains huge whisky. Extremely tarry and oily, with a peat profile that manages to be both drying and extremely gelatinous at the same time. Old herbal cough medicines and liqueurs alongside salted liquorice and pure tar extract. I also find some dried exotic fruits and soy sauce. A rather majestic fusion of umami, smoky, medicinal and fruity. Finish: long, deep and drying peat smoke, with more dried fruits, salt cured fish, tar, black olive and old herbal medicines. Comments: simple in some ways with the sheer directness of its character, but complex in others in the wonderful way these peat and coastal influences entangle and manifest. A style that no longer exists on Islay, or anywhere for that matter.
 SGP: 555 - 92 points. 

Caol Ila 15 yo (65.3%, Sestante, 1980s)
As is well known, this juice would have been distilled in the ‘old’ Caol Ila distillery and sourced from Gordon & MacPhail. Colour: straw. Nose: really blurring the boundaries between petrol and whisky. It’s obviously a fat and intensely powerful distillate, yet it also manages to be an absolute blade of razor-sharp precision. The alcohol doesn’t really even register, rather it just takes a bit of breathing time and then a slow avalanche of coastal elements, shellfish vibes and citrus fruits begin to come through. With water: broadens out incredibly, a deep, rustic and muscular smokiness emerges. Also some green herbs, more seawater, but it rather defies description, it’s just an incredibly direct, pure and dominating profile that you can only follow along and gawp at. Mouth: I can’t help but think of some very excellent and probably expensive Montrachet upon first sipping. It has that extremely classy ‘white wine’ vibe in terms of precision, purity and class. Ashes, wood smoke, seawater, citrus acids, mineral salts, more petrolic qualities - rather mesmerising and totally dominating whisky. With water: citrus rinds galore, waxes, pink sea salt, the very best preserved lemons, pure tar extracts, smoked cooking oils, camphor and huge medicinal embrocations. Hard to say more, except maybe call that anti-maltoporn brigade, for all the use they ever are. Finish: extremely long, peat flavour with the texture of treacle while also retaining a brilliant and utterly pin sharp salinity. Comments: one of those whiskies that is really more a physical experience than a drink. An immense and totally dominating spirit. 
SGP: 467 - 94 points.