Been a while since I had a good sherried Caol Ila. Too few good sherried CI’s out there, and I wonder why don’t they fill more. I am a sucker for the peat and sherry combo, and from first nosing this one I know it was up my alley. What are friends for eh?
Caol Ila 18 yo 1995/2013 ,57.5%, Wilson & Morgan, sherry butt, cask #10027,€ 129
Nose: Sweet and lovely with sherry tar and kerosene. Sweet bacon. Eucalyptus and ash. Prune compote and sweet smoke as well as crushed pepper, it has got a nice chocolate-y feel to it too, as well as some old tobacco shop going on, which is cool.
Palate: Sweet peat. Demerara sugar. Cured bacon in sweet prune syrup. Peat reek , leather and earth. Sweet spicy Chilly. Lovely sherry influence, on top of rum soaked cherries. Nom Nom Nom.
Finish: Sweet smoke. Cured bacon. Leather and prune jam.
This is a beautiful well aged sherry cask CI, and I am in deep love here. I want a bottle of this, for sure. Never had a cask from those guys at W&M (not Whyte and Mackay!). This stuff is still available, which is nice!
Lucky that we have plenty of W&M stuff here. Their Mortlach and Laphroaig bottlings are very nice ones.
Lucky indeed Peter!
This is indeed al very good Caol Ila and very different from e.g. a heavily peated and sherried Bowmore. This one is much more subtle without the smell and taste of burned plastic that sometimes occurs in these kind of Bowmores.