Sequel to my recaps for days one and two. It's been a wonderful Feis so far, and we feel lucky and grateful to be able to return after a five-year hiatus.
Day Three, Monday, is Caol Ila Open Day on island's eastern coast. Here are our impressions and advice, let me know if you guys find this helpful and interesting!
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• This year is the first year in a while that the open day has returned to the distillery after a multi-year renovation. The new visitor center is much bigger, sleeker, and glossier than older examples like Lagavulin's spartan bottle shop. Caol Ila's center is a Disney World-esque tribute to all things Diageo, selling many of their major single malts and special annual releases, along with a big array of Johnnie Walker products.
• Unsurprisingly, Caol Ila day is a lot like Lagavulin day. Great, well-organized team. On arrival, they hand out a welcome packet with a pin, map, and two dram tokens per person, and everyone can choose between two whiskies for those free pours. Caol Ila offered the Distillers Edition and Moch.
• Like at Lagavulin, the dram-token system is only lightly enforced. We came in and got two packets, then went to the main bar, and they handed me two more packets because I was holding the first two under the bar (not intentionally, I swear!). By 4 pm, team members were passing out more drams, no tokens exchanged, so the famous generosity of festival week is still here, just a little more under wraps.
• ASOIAF/Game of Thrones fans may appreciate this reference: Caol Ila is the Pyke of Islay distilleries. Not only is it on the coast, it's on a verdant rocky cliffside, so you must take a winding wooden walkway to enter it. Caol Ila is also the most "vertical," for lack of a better word. The gift shop's on Level 3, and the main courtyard was on Level 0. On each level, there are different experience rooms, including a mini-history museum on Level 2.
• In that history museum, we enjoyed a wonderful experience with Jo and Peter (a Diageo historian and a blending team member, respectively). It was strange; almost every other major event sold out very quickly, but this one was still available a week before we arrived, for a relatively reasonable 45 pounds/person. When we got there, only one other couple had booked it, and all of us had a great time chatting. Jo and Peter were fun company and fonts of whisky knowledge. And the four whiskies ... quite something. As a bonus, Jo and Peter gave us a to-go sample of a whisky they custom-created for the Lagavulin Malt Mill experience (the idea was to recreate the early 1900s whisky made at Lagavulin for blending). Such a kind gesture.
• If you ever find yourself on Islay do yourself a favor and go to the Ballygrant Inn. Heck, go twice. It may be the best whisky bar on an island chock full of amazing watering holes. The selection feels infinite, and the prices are eye-poppingly reasonable. As a comparison, we had Laphroaig's 2009 and 2010 Cairdeas bottles for 8.50 pounds per pour, whereas they were 25-30 pounds per pour at a bar in Bowmore. And if you want to try rare bottles or festival bottles without the madness of Feis week, this is your spot. They have many Feis Ile expressions from the last 5-10 years.
• Hang out at a bar long enough, and you realize some people are not here to play. Chatted with one group that was ordering powerhouse dram after powerhouse dram - Ardbeg Single Casks, 20-plus year old Bowmores and Bunnahabhains, etc. - like there was no tomorrow. One gentleman let me taste a sip of an Ardbeg single cask (70 or so pound pour). Yeah, it was pretty good.
• SMWS (Scotch Malt Whisky Society) does great events throughout the week, and you don't have to be a member to attend or buy their bottles, unlike the rest of the year. They had a booth outside of Ballygrant today, and we got to try 5-6 expressions and ended up buying two festival bottles: a 14-year-old Macallan beauty bottled for Spirit of Speyside and a 14-year-old Caol Ila in honor of their open day, which was better (just IMO) than the official festival bottling and about half the price.
• The vindaloo curry at Indian Tandoori/Taj Mahal in Bowmore is really spicy. Perfect hearty meal for resetting the system after a long day.
• Fauna spotting: there are distinctive black and white seabirds with red feet all over the island, named black guillemots, but known at the distillery as "Caol Ila penguins." We also saw a swan couple that we've now spotted at Lagavulin, Bunnahabhain, Bowmore, and across the bay by Jura. Not sure if they're the same single pair of swans, but it feels like they're following us around!

We powered through quite a few drams today (lots of small sample pours, or driver's dram bottles to take home):
Caol Ila Moch - the easy entry ramp into peated single malts, but not going to be any seasoned fan's favorite.
Caol Ila Distillers Edition - Weird but super-fun scent today: chinkiang vinegar. My fellow Chinese folk will know what I'm talking about. Great with dumplings when blended with soy sauce. Maybe Caol Ila DE is a good substitute?
Caol Ila Distillery Exclusive - 2018 bottling with a red-wine finish. Nose is so different than other Caol Ilas, pure vanilla and coconut, but with the spice and tannins of a red-wine finish in the late palate.
Caol Ila Four Corners of Scotland, 14 y.o. - 2022 bottling that was made to emphasize the distillery's character. Core profile: ashy petrols and iodine on the nose, but a sweet, lemon/citrus palate, and a floral/smoke finish.
Caol Ila Feis Ile 2023, 13 y.o. - This year's festival bottling is a marriage of 10 first-fill PX and oloroso sherry casks. Was a surprising dram because most first-fill whiskies are very intensely sherried, at the cost of some balance. For this one, the distillery character won out and there might have been too little sherry influence.
Caol Ila 1996, 26 y.o. single cask - Not for sale, just for tastings like this one. This ruddy dram was so rich and unctuous it nosed like a bourbon, but the taste was all rich, old, sherry-aged, sweet-and-peat Islay goodness. An absolute stunner. My wife said cuatro leches due to the high caramel and brown sugar; I also got some pineapple juice on the finish.
SMWS 53.446, "Blowtorched Mexican Mousse," 14 y.o. - This Caol Ila is more of the classic sherry-and-peat combo, really potent and meaty, like barbecue ribs slathered with some sweet Kansas City-style sauce. Bottled for this year's Feis.
SMWS G16 Rare Release, "Dark n'Stormy Creme Brulee," 6 y.o. - This one-off whisky was a collab with Glasgow Distillery to make a Scottish bourbon-style whisky. Using a mashbill of 51+% corn, rye, and barley (sounds like bourbon, yeah?), aged in new American oak casks (bourbon, right?), this one tastes like ... a pretty delicious rye whisky to me, and a high-rye bourbon to my wife. Fascinating dram.
SMWS 24 Rare Release, "Massive Oak Extraction," 14 y.o. - Single cask, cask-strength Macallan. Burnt matchsticks nose (a common note from sherry aging), followed by a tour-de-force palate of dark, sugary fruits and baking spices. A much more muscular Macallan than any of their own bottlings.
SMWS 3 Rare Release, "The Finesse of a Fragrant Furnace," 18 y.o. - A strange Bowmore, so gentle and light and sweet that it read more like a Highland whisky to us. But maybe that's what happens when you're on your 4th cask strength whisky after leaving a 4-cask-strength-whisky tasting ...
SMWS 53 Rare Release, "Honeysuckle Petrichor," 14 y.o. - Another Caol Ila, which had some similar notes to the previous one, but with an ashier and "dirtier"/farmier palate. Petrichor, for sure. Depends if you want more of that rough, earthy peat, but you can't go wrong either way.
Laphroaig 2009 Cairdeas 12 y.o. - This showcases a fresh-cut fruit and light side to Laphroaig that I rarely see outside of 20-year-old-plus bottlings. Not at all the norm, but that's why I love the Cairdeas series.
Laphroaig 2010 Cairdeas Master Edition - In contrast to 2009, 2010 was straight down the fairway. Ashy, smoky, medicinal, maritime, and warming. I wish I could compare this side by side with the 2015 200th Anniversary or with 2022's Warehouse 1. It sort of falls between those two bottlings. With this dram, I've made it through the entire Cairdeas lineup!
Octomore 08.2 - Well, it's an Octomore, what is there to say? Wave after wave of peat, balanced out by salinity and an intense, tinned-fruit sweetness. After 15 minutes, got some chocolate wafer cookies on the nose.
Ardbeg Galileo - This feels like a classic Ardbeg from a bygone golden age. I wish the juice still tasted like this. It doesn't have any of the mustiness or dirtiness of some peated whiskies; it's fruity, mellow, and citric, like a barbecued fruit skewer. Not your normal 'Beg, not sure if they lowered the peat content here.

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