Many moons ago, it was a dram of Caol Ila 12 that ignited my passion for whisky, and what a journey it has been. Time to revisit my old friend! On the nose, puffs of twiggy bonfire smoke give way to green apples, lemon and briny hints of seawater. Heather honey, black olives and peppery oak spices drive the full-bodied and oily taste, always accompanied by well-integrated sooty salinity. Citrus fruits, subtle vanilla and complex tea notes linger in the long and peaty finish. I'm biased, I know, but this characterful Islay malt is still overlooked and underrated!

RATING: 4.0/5.0 stars ≙ 87 pts → FIRST-CLASS

This is the review of the very first release of the standard 12-years old Caol Ila from 2002 (hence distilled in 1990).

[August, 2019] After an interesting old versus new head-to-head of the standard 18-years old Caol Ila edition that resulted in significant differences (3 points) I decided to do the same with the 12-years old standard edition. It is a head-to-head of the 2018 release (NEW, WB id 120834) versus this first ever bottling from 2002 (OLD, there is neither a Classic Malts logo nor a www.malts.com reference on the back label)...

...and the differences between these two are again significant. OLD is a typical old Traditional Scotch dram (distillate-driven, more complex, balanced all the time) while NEW shows elements of the modern whisky style already (much more wood-driven which leads to an imbalace during the finish, less complex). Guess what I prefer (by two points)?

For me, one of the most underrated single malts out there, a very nice standard islay for people who are not just blind ash-horny. ;)

2021-04-10

At first sight a typical heavy peated Islay whisky, but surprisingly sweeter and more delicate than expected

Okay, but it comes across as a bit rough and industrial with cutter diesel, heavy fuel oil and a sooty smokehouse.

Light and fresh, with a lot of smoke.

Some would say boring about Caol Ila 12, I think it's delicious and just calmly honest. A distillery that for me stands for solid craftsmanship and high quality, despite the large quantities that are bottled. Clear recommendation for the small budget!

Nice, and a really very independent standard bottling in terms of flavor at a very fair price. Of course, I would be happy if Caol Ila switched to 46% drinking strength, but that is probably not to be expected, any more than with Lagavulin.