Cadenhead's Caol Ila 31 Year Old

Cadenhead Caol Ila 31 Year Old is a fluke… a glorious accident of good fortune.

Established in 1842, Cadenhead is Scotland’s oldest independent bottler. Their two shops in London and Edinburgh are veritable shrines to the art and science of Whisky. For their own line of spirits they purchase a cask or two at a time from the best distilleries. What matters to them is that they find something unique or special that is in too limited a supply for the those distilleries to effectively market. Otherwise, these odd-lot casks of heavenly spirit would be destined to be sloshed into large vats of blended Whisky — and that’s no good, right?

Caol Ila is one of the lighter, more floral single malt from the largest distillery on Islay. Owned by Diageo, it’s Whisky is in high demand as a core component to dozens of premium blends. In fact, the major blends take 95% of production, leaving only 5% to go into their signature single malts. Cadenhead has managed to grab a few amazingly old casks that are just to darn great to waste in a blend. And aged 31 years in ex-Bourbon casks, it is far older than anything that the distillery bottles on its own. This is truly a rare opportunity to own of the richest and oldest single malts to come out of this historic distillery.