Caol Ila 12, Berry Bros & Rudd, 56.5%
A 2010 Caol Ila from Berry Bros & Rudd, bottled in 2022 and finished in a Vin Santo cask (Cask No. 311758), is an intriguing, dessert-leaning dram. For the uninitiated (me included), Vin Santo is an Italian sweet dessert wine — and it shows. The nose is enticing: fresh leather couch and a humidor full of good cigars, with campfire smoke and dark, sweet fruit from the wine cask. The palate opens with sweetness, malt, and peat, then shifts to honey-roasted nuts, finishing with sweet wisps of ash and a tickle of chili pepper. Overall, it’s a smoky but not overwhelming, custardy dessert pour that reads like a sweet smoke box with a rare and enjoyable finish, richly complex and sweetened from the cask much like a fine white dessert wine. If you’re expecting a classic wine-finished malt, this isn’t it. Value: N/A — received from a friend.
Score: A- (Dessert)
Pulteney 18, Hunter Laing’s Old & Rare, 58.6%
A 2002 Pulteney distillate, aged in a bourbon barrel for 18 years and bottled in 2022 under the Old & Rare label. While this was a single cask sold by K&L, there’s no cask number to report — oh well. Let’s dig in! A classic bourbon-cask, buttery nose with a hint of salt, the signature note for this distillery. The palate is clean and classically structured, with just a trace of wood smoke carried by that same saline note, likely from the cask, as Pulteney’s core distillate is unpeated. Pepper and ginger make their presence known in the secondaries but never dominate. The finish lingers lightly sweet, with vanilla and refined sugars that seem just out of reach. It’s so delicate that adding water makes it somewhat generic — yet also teases out a bit of aged-wood complexity along with a faint, pleasant bitterness. Overall: a strong yet gentle experience; at nearly 60% ABV, it drinks closer to 50%. Respectfully mature, refined, and never overpowering — an elegantly light pour. It’s sweet, slightly white-citrusy, classical, and maybe a touch boring. Value: at $149 in 2022, it wasn’t the cheapest option but not the most expensive either; comfortably average value for its tier at the time. For context, current pricing in 2025 would be about $200.
https://shop.klwines … ucts/details/1642143
Score: B+
Glendronach Cask Strength, Batch 12, 58.2%
Ah, Glendronach — I wax poetic about your whisky on a regular basis. Let’s review another from the Cask Strength series, this time Batch #12. As always, it’s aged in sherry casks — both Oloroso and PX — and bottled at, surprise, cask strength. The nose is sweet: maple syrup, dried plums, and apricots. The palate shows prominent oak, sugars, and an almost surprising level of sweetness — mocha, chocolate, and those same dried fruits — before wrapping up with toasted oak spice. The sweetness nearly overwhelms, throwing the balance off a bit. A pleasant aftertaste lingers, peppery and warm, once the sugar rush fades. Overall: an odd one in the Cask Strength lineup; not bad by any means, but it leans toward an off-profile spiced stone-fruit pie rather than the classical balance of older batches. I don’t dislike it, but I don’t love it nearly as much as past ones. Value: this bottle came from a friend, but at an MSRP of around $100, it’s still a solid deal these days.
Score: B
Glenlivet 16, Total Wine SP, Signatory Vintage, 64%
A 2006 Glenlivet aged 16 years in a 1st-fill sherry butt, selected as a single cask for Total Wine by Signatory Vintage (Cask #900793). The nose hits with a deep “wood mastic paste” note from my childhood — woody, slightly sulfuric, toasted-wax vibes — along with a noticeable punch of ABV. The palate is a fairly standard sherried Speyside: dark fruits, toasted wood, and cask spices in good balance, but the proof is intense and comes across a bit hot when neat. A touch of water opens it up nicely, reveals more spice in the secondary notes, and the finish mirrors the palate with the same wood-and-spice character. Overall: doesn’t break new ground, but what it does, it does well — water strongly recommended to bring the proof to a comfortable range. Value: I recall this being around $130 at Total Wine; not cheap, but not unreasonable in today’s market for a 16-year single cask from a major Speyside malt.
Score: B (w/ water)
Glenturret 14, Gordon & MacPhail, 52.8%
A single cask from 2005, part of Gordon & MacPhail’s Connoisseur’s Choice line, aged 14 years in a 1st-fill sherry hogshead and bottled in 2019. Right on the nose this screams “quality cask”: spicy old-school sherry notes without sulfur, like chocolate milk with raisins — rich but not cloyingly sweet. The palate follows through with balanced sherry richness, more chocolate-and-raisin character, plenty of toasted oak spice, and the finish carries toasted wood, cask spice, and roasted almonds. Overall: this is an extremely well-done bottle — superb malt-and-sherry integration and a cask that feels like one of the high-quality, old-style sherry barrels rather than modern rushed seasoning. It may be a bit what-you-see-is-what-you-get and lacking some deeper subtleties that more age might reveal, yet it’s still a very good one. If I didn’t already own too many bottles, I should have bought two. Value: an absolute bargain at $99, especially since it resurfaced at a local shop at pre-2025 pricing.
Score: A-
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Scoring Breakdown: https://www.aerin.or … age=scores_breakdown