This week of reviews of wine-bothered peated whiskies got off to a rather rocky start on Monday with a 10 yo Ballechin from a marsala cask. Things looked up significantly with Wednesday’s Kilchoman for Spec’s which had received a madeira cask finish. That one was three years younger but balanced the peat and the sweeter wine notes well. Here to close out the week is a Caol Ila that is almost as old as the other two put together. This is also a finish, this time in moscatel casks. If I recall correctly, the Caol Ila Distillers Edition—is that still a regular thing?—is also a moscatel finish; but I’m not sure what connection that might have to a 16 yo moscatel finished whisky released by an indie bottler: perhaps something left over from a Feis Ile or Distillery Exclusive experiment? If you have any ideas, please write in below. The bottler in question is the Alistair Walker Whisky Company, who put out all their releases under the Infrequent Flyers label. While the company is relatively new, Alistair Walker has been around in the whisky world for a while. He’s the son of Billy Walker, ex of Benriach/Glendronach, now at Glenallachie. Indeed, he was the source of the information on Glendronach’s “single cask” practices that led to this post, early in the blog’s career. Of course, none of that has anything to do with this whisky but I got a bit of a kick out of it when I found out. Continue reading →