Scotch Whisky Review: Caol Ila 2010 Signatory 11 Year Old for TWE

You don’t often see young Caol Ila done up in full-term refill-sherry (it’s all about brief finishes these days).

Caol Ila 2010 Signatory 11 Year Old / 58.2% / £100

Tasted neat

From “The Un-Chillfiltered Collection”, and released exclusively for The Whisky Exchange (TWE), this Signatory Vintage cask strength Caol Ila was distilled on 9/22/2010 and aged for 11 years in refill sherry cask #316662 before bottling on 9/22/2021. This is bottle #322 of 558, and initial impressions are a very dark colour from this sherry butt.

• Color: old oak (1.8)
• Nose: tarry, damp, musty peaty with lots of iodine, salt, dunnage warehouse, sulphur, and berry jam
• Taste: minerally peat, fruitness, sulphur creaminess, dark chocolate, a burst of citrus, rye crackers, and stewed berries
• Finish: the finish is long, peat smoke, bandaids, chalk, and some dessert sweetness

This has most of the distillery character I associate with younger Caol Ila dressed in a Sherry bomb, and it is delicious. It’s rich, complex but high-quality distillate and a very peat/Islay forward taste profile as well. A perfect marriage!

Rating: 7/10