Caol Ila 30 Years Old 1991 Cask #DL 15245 (XOP)

A Caol Ila drawn by the Glasgow bottler Douglas Laing, distilled in 1991, from cask DL 15245, bottled at 48.4%, one of 190 bottles. Caol Ila has distilled at Port Askaig since the middle of the 19th century. Its spirit also feeds blends such as Bell's and Black Bottle.

Here the spirit was worked from peated barley through the distillery's tall stills, giving a clean, lemony peat. A sherry cask gave dried fruit and a dark, nutty sweetness. At this great, fragile age oxidation has the last word, ethereal esters, beeswax and old polished tannins where the smoke once was. Smoked citrus and a saline minerality are the hallmarks of the make. Its peated character is built on malt smoked to a medium level of phenols. The peat here is medium rather than heavy, so fruit and smoke share the glass. The clean, oily spirit takes cask flavour well while holding its citrus and smoke.

At a hearty 48.4% it carries real weight. A clean ashy smoke with lime and brine, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. The texture is oily, the smoke threaded with citrus. Lemon, soft ash and sea salt see it out. This is a clean, smoky Islay single malt from Caol Ila.