The first Scottish blenders used peated whisky sparingly to give their mellow blends a bit of a ‘kick’ and this time I’m looking to bring this type of blended whisky into the 21st century. I’m not using grain whisky, just malts, to get a fuller taste and upping the amount of peated whisky to match.

Caol Morclas is a new version of Far Mor Peaty (which only managed to get 3 drams), containing Caol Ila instead of the more powerful Laphroaig and Lagavulin. I also tweaked the ratio of Glenmorangie to Glenfarclas to allow more of the gentle sweetness in the Glenmorangie to poke through the sherried nature of the Glenfarclas. Lets see if this new recipe will net Caol Morclas more drams than its predecessor shall we?

The nose is somewhat surprising: beeswax and cream is the first impression, then a tiny bit of smoke which strengthens over time, vanilla, fruit and malt. Apart from the smoke this could be a Clynelish! The taste starts with the Caol Ila: peat of the forest-floor kind. Then it mellows and sweetens with honey and banana coming through on a bed of spices as well as pepper and salt(!). The finish is honeyed with just the slightest hint of smoke, then goes waxy. It does not go dry but stays mouthwatering throughout.

Overall, this is good! The balance is there, but the individual tastes of peat, honey and spices each get their moments in the limelight (I imagine that name comes from Lime operating the spots, because he sure isn’t featured in this dram… Okay, that was possibly my worst pun to date. Sorry for that.) this could be a peated Highland malt if I didn’t know better.

Next time I may have a new version of Lagaton or I may have something totally new! Want to find out? Stick around!!

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