When a whisky is matured in 1st Fill Sherry Butts, you’d think it will sport dark color and big sherry notes in the whisky, but that’s not always the case because there are different kinds of sherry and different kind of casks.

Take for example this Caol Ila 2005 11 Year old from Gordon & Macphail. A vatting of 4 casks (Casks 301521, 301523, 301524 & 301527) that were all distilled on februari 2005, lay asleep for a long time and then married together and bottled Last juli. You wouldn’t think it’s a whisky matured in first fill sherry casks.

Caol Ila...