Caol Ila The Distillers Edition 2023

This distillery bottling of Caol Ila is at 43%. Caol Ila sits on the shore at Port Askaig, on the narrow Sound of Islay. A ferry crosses the Sound from Port Askaig to Jura and the mainland.

Here the spirit was drawn off a high cut from peated barley, shaping the lighter side of Islay. A sherry cask wrapped the spirit in dried fruit and a nutty depth. Carrying no age, the cask shows vanillin (vanilla) and a coconut from oak lactones, the phenols lending a clean medicinal smoke. Active wood frames the smoke without smothering the citrus beneath. The clean, oily spirit takes cask flavour well while holding its citrus and smoke. The six tall stills sit behind picture windows looking out to Jura. Its peated character is built on malt smoked to a medium level of phenols. Diageo's Special Releases have featured both peated and unpeated Caol Ila. The peat here is medium rather than heavy, so fruit and smoke share the glass.

At 43% it is soft, oily and bright. A clean peat with sea salt and citrus, with grape, honey and a floral lift from the cask. Smoked lemon and sea salt build over an oily body. A long maritime smoke closes it. This is an elegant Islay single malt.