Do not be alarmed: this is a whisky review. This used to be a whisky blog once, you know. That was before I began to lose interest in the whisky world (though not in drinking whisky itself) and before my whisky readership—never large—lost interest in me. The former, as I’ve noted before, had to do with a rapidly accelerating disenchantment with the state of the industry. Key drivers of this disenchantment were the drop in the quality of whisky available on the market—especially as many indies began to be squeezed out—and the simultaneous rise in prices for what would once have been considered very young whisky. I more or less stopped buying whisky several years ago now. By that I mean that I stopped buying whisky in my frenzied manner of old; I still purchase the occasional bottle of an old favourite or three. Mostly, I am now drinking down my stores of good whisky purchased in that time of frenzy at very good prices. Such, for example, is this Caol Ila 30 that was released by Whiskybase under their Archives label in 2012. How much did I pay for it then? My spreadsheet tells me it was $148. Those of you who are still active buyers of single malt whisky can tell me what kind of whisky that would get me in today’s market (I don’t even keep track of those things anymore). Alright, enough melancholy talk: let’s get to the notes!

Caol Ila 30, 1982 (51.2%; Archives; hogshead #758; from my own bottle)

Nose: Almond oil, smoldering coals, lemon, smoked fish, sea shells. The smoke is more phenolic on the second sniff and some green olives show up as well. The lemon expands as well as it sits. A few drops of water bring out a lot of salt and some wet limestone.

Palate: Smokier here but generally as predicted by the nose. Quite a bit of pepper as I swallow. A pretty good drinking strength; oily texture. Sweeter as it goes with more of the almond oil and sea shells. The salt emerges here too with water and blends nicely with the sweet oily notes.

Finish: Long. That (cracked) pepper expands as it goes along with the smoke and the sweet oil emerges again. As on the palate with water with the salt trumping the pepper.

Comments: A lovely old Caol Ila from a cask that did not interfere with the spirit very much. Alas, once this bottle is done I will have no more 30 yo (or older) Caol Ila on my shelves and there is no way I will ever spend the money it would take to buy another in this market. So it goes.

Rating: 90 points.