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 February 2005, lay asleep for a long time and then married together and bottled Last July. You wouldn’t think it’s a whisky matured in first fill sherry casks.
Caol Ila 2005 11 Year Old (Gordon & Macphail Cask Strength) (57.3%, £47.40/€69.95)
Nose: Classic Caol Ila peat smoke, red apples, lemon, smoke and saltiness, malt cereals, cream, cured meat and after a while some fruity fragrance. It’s a mellow nose and not a very complex one but it has structure and backbone. With a few drops of water it’s fruitier with more honey, a touch of pineapple, extra vanilla and pears, richer and stronger. Continue reading
Nose: Elegant and light sherry notes at first: sweet dried fruit with some fresh berries thrown in for a good measure accompanied by cinnamon. Then honey, cereals, pears and white fruit, soft and creamy vanilla with crushed nuts, quite a rich nose and after a while the lovely sherry notes comes back for good. 
Nose: Fruity with apples, red apples peels, a touch of peaches, it very much reminds me some of official Craigellachie lineup traits with those apples, roasted/burnt matches and the oily and smooth feeling. bakery full of fruit cakes, some nuttiness, cream, ginger and spices. 
Nose: It’s a very fruity nose with a lot of pears and pineapple notes. Also some creamy malt, liqorice, bitter grapefruit and gentle oak wood spices. After it sat down in the glass for a few minutes there were red apples, lemon, herbal eucalyptus and light spearmint perfume. 
Nose: Relaxed, fresh, dried fruit with sultanas and figs, some eucalyptus, nutty, furniture varnish, getting fragrance & fruit sweetness, sherried by balanced by the american oak, in fact it mat be suggestive but there’s some vanilla note below the surface. What a lovely nose! 
Nose: At first sniff it feels even younger than 8 yo Glenrothes from the last review. There is a big malt and cereals mix and some beeswax. The sherry casks are felt at first with light dried fruits coupled with sweet and fresh red berries but then the impact slowly turns into a fruitier impact with some apricots and lemon peels along with the red and dried fruits, 
Nose: Malty and creamy coconut, vanilla with a touch of honey, oak wood spices, develops some green apples at the background with a surprising briney note and then slowly some weak sherry impact shows up: chocolate, nutmeg and cinnamon. A very gentle nose.
Nose: Glorious old sherry, sour and sweet, where to start? Lots of berries here, strawberries and raspberries, dates, figs, sultanas, cherries chocolate and plain milk chocolate, cooked nutmeg and a dash of bitter herbals and oak spices. Very rich and very fresh despite the old age. 
Nose: Bread dough, cereals, sourdough, grapefruits, honey, white pepper, gentle wet wood note. After 2-3 minutes it’s sweeter with added honey and then some traces of vanilla, gentle flowery and spearmint notes, not perfumed but hints at it and still lots of grapefruits 
Nose: Sweet and rich sherry impact: dried berries, stewed fruit and prunes and it’s bordering fruit compote. The peat is very subdued with delicate tingling smoke in the background. After a few minutes in the glass, the sherry impact is getting lighter while the smokiness stays at a steady level and we get to sniff some grilled red apples and even some spicy menthol. further on it gets some perfume edge and citrus. 
Whisky Gospel 