26/02/2024 Caol Ila

Caol Ila 7yo 2016/2023 (58.5%, Adelphi Selection, 1st Fill Oloroso Sherry Hogshead, C#26580, 256b): nose: sharp and dry, this is a white wine on steroids, with an earthy, medicinal touch for good measure -- and it is growing. Iso Betadine, merbromin, desert dirt, crusty earth, and ashes spread on a rugby pitch. It is ashy indeed, which introduces crumbly dried seaweeds, coated in sea salt, and even kippers, so smoked and salty one would struggle to identify it as fish. We land on a wide beach taken over by seaweed; a glass of chilled white wine helps us forget that we are covered in Iso Betadine, a reminder of chicken pox, of course. We notice fishing nets, hung out to dry on the same beach. Time to nibble green olives. The second nose is slightly less dry; the desert dirt turns into damp earth -- not mud by a long shot, but petrichor. It takes a while for the salt to resurface, and it is then less exuberant. The medicinal impression is more tincture of iodine than the potent Iso Betadine, at this stage. Stale merbromin is still there, if one cares to look for it. Mouth: immensely salty, the palate has black olives, rollmops, dolmas dripping with a salty brine, and a smoke that seems more pronounced than it was on the nose. Menthol cigarette ashes, still smoking in the ashtray, smoked mussels and razor clams, whelks in a salt crust, but also tar. You read that right: it is as if the medicinal aspect from the nose had been swapped for a coat of tar. It even has petrol, via retro-nasal olfaction. The second sip confirms the black olives -- dipped in petrol, now. It takes all sorts, eh? It feels like trying to wash down the petrol with lame coffee. Unsuccessfully, I might add. It is now a petrolic affair and a half. A rather numbing one too. Tincture of iodine, surely. Over time, white wine returns to prominence, this time bone dry. Finish: a bowl of petrol-blue coffee with enough sugar to stop it being instant-spitting material. It is clearly petrolic, and that character easily dominates. Tarry sands, an oil spill on a calm sea, cockles after a black tide, watery coffee. That coffee is all that remains of the nose's earthy notes, and, if the finish has a pinch of ash, it is hardly medicinal. The second sip has overly-salty sourdough, dunked raw into a bowl of watery coffee. By the way, if the idea of a bowl of coffee seems odd to you, you are not alone. The French do it. The French are odd, sometimes. It makes coffee taste peculiar. I do not want to write 'bad', but that is what I mean -- even worse than usual. Back to the finish: after a couple of minutes and a couple of sips, the mouth has the same sensation as after sucking a coffee-soaked smoked seashell (the shell, not the mollusc). That means a mineral and earthy aspect that actually works alright. In the longer term, we have ashy, briny preserved lemons. This is fairly simple, but decent. I like it better today than the first time. Probably because it feels drier. 7/10