Caol Ila 18 Unpeated Style Review
I’ve long wondered what some of my favorite Islay whiskies would taste like if you removed the one ingredient for which they are most known—peat smoke. An unpeated Ardbeg? Laphroaig? What would that taste like? Sure, there are a couple of Islay distilleries that produce peated and unpeated (or at least lightly peated) expressions, but those two distilleries—Bruichladdich and Bunnahabhain—use low peat as their house styles. Huge peat is the exception for them, not the rule. So what about the distilleries on Islay that always dial up the peat smoke?
When it comes to Islay’s south shore distilleries (Laphroaig, Lagavulin, and Ardbeg), we can only imagine what their whisky would taste like without a heavy dose of peat smoke. In the meantime Caol Ila provides us with an answer.
Although Caol Ila is not quite as heavily peated of a single malt whisky compared to some other Islay malts, it is still well peated. But in recent years, Diageo (the owner of Caol Ila) has included an unpeated expression of Caol Ila in its annual special release range. The most recent version, included in the 2017 special releases, was aged 18 years—the oldest official bottling of unpeated Caol Ila to date. Like the other Diageo special releases, it is also bottled at cask strength.
I’m a pretty big fan of Caol Ila in general, whether it’s the standard 12 year old expression or any of the independent bottles (IBs) I’ve tried (Caol Ila seems to be one of the more common single malts to be found amongst IBs). While heavily peated, Caol Ila is normally not quite a peat monster, combining a nice amount of peat smoke with a complex array of fruits and other flavors, resulting in a more balanced Islay whisky.
So what does an unpeated Caol Ila taste like? Let’s find out.
Caol Ila 18 Unpeated Style (2017) Review
Type: Single Malt Scotch
Region: Islay
ABV: 59.8%
Nose
Tropical fruits. Lots of papaya. Toasted coconut. Driftwood. Marshmallows toasted over a campfire. Vanilla mints. Lemon. A small hint of gentle and sweet peat smoke.
Palate
Citrus, lemon especially. Also orange and lime. Burnt caramel. Bitter honey. Cream cheese danish. Tropical fruits. Vanilla cream (at times similar to a vanilla Tootsie Roll). Bourbon oak. A bit astringent. Perhaps too much oak. A touch of peat smoke lurking in the background, as if you had just had a heavily peated dram in your glass and didn’t rinse it out.
Mouthfeel is fairly full and a bit creamy… nice but nothing special.
Finish
Lemon. Vanilla. Dried papaya and other tropical fruits. Long in length—lingers lightly for quite some time.
Overall
When first opened, this Caol Ila was dry, restrained, boring, and disappointing. But with some exposure to air, it opened up fairly well. Papaya is one of the most interesting and prominent notes. But even after it opened up, it’s still a bit boring and is bordering on being over-oaked. I might have guessed there was a little virgin oak influence (I doubt there is or else they likely would have mentioned that in the marketing).
Although the malt used to make this whisky was unpeated, there are some hints of peat smoke to be found here. When a distillery spends the vast majority of its time making heavily peated whisky, it is apparently difficult to completely remove peat from the equation. So whether it came from the equipment or the casks used to age this malt, a bit of peat does end up in the final product. But just a bit.
The nose is quite nice, as is the finish. And although my notes for the palate sound appetizing, it still manages to disappoint slightly. There’s a general lack of balance in this malt. Yes, it’s pretty tasty, but I can’t help but feel like it’s missing something… something like a nice, generous dollop of peat smoke.
SCORE: 84/100
Final Thoughts
So how does this compare to peated Caol Ila? In addition to the (mostly) missing peat smoke, I’m also not finding any of the floral, coastal, or oily elements that I usually get in Caol Ila. If I had been served this dram completely blind, I rather doubt that I could have identified it as being from Caol Ila or as being an Islay whisky.
I enjoyed this bottle mostly from an educational standpoint. But as a single malt in and of itself, I found it a bit unbalanced and a little disappointing. It’s not bad. It’s actually fairly good. But there’s a reason why Caol Ila is usually made with peated malt—it makes for much better whisky.
I found the palate of this Caol Ila 18 year to be strangely reminiscent of another single malt I recently reviewed—Glenmorangie Astar. The tropical fruits, bourbon oak, vanilla… they are certainly not the same malts, but there are similarities. And so I set up a blind side-by-side tasting between the Caol Ila 18 Unpeated and the Glenmorangie Astar to see if I could tell which was which and determine which I like better. In the tasting, it was very clear which of the two whiskies had the better nose and palate, and I suspected it was the Astar. Still, they were similar enough that I wasn’t 100% sure that I identified them correctly blind. It turns out I did get them correct, but I wouldn’t have been shocked to learn I had them mixed up. It was a fun little tasting, and it confirmed what I had suspected… Astar, while having a similar flavor profile to this Caol Ila, is a better tasting whisky, at least to my palate.
Buy Again? No. I’m glad I bought a bottle, but only for educational purposes and to satisfy my own curiosity. This is a decent enough dram, but it’s just not blowing me away. It needs peat. I’d rather spend similar money on one of the many independently bottled expressions of Caol Ila available.
Drink This Not That: If you’re looking for a nice education on what a Caol Ila tastes like without the peat smoke, then by all means give this a try. But if you’re just looking for an enjoyable drinking experience, try a peated Caol Ila instead.
Questions about my scoring system? Refer to the Review Method & Scoring Scale page.
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