Tasting note by Best of Wines

Caol Ila Finale

This is it, the last day of this year's Blind Tasting Competition is officially over, the results are in and we know who can call themselves the best tasters of 2025. We've had a blast and we hope to be seeing all of you back for our 2026 edition! We like to end with a personal favourite of ours, and I believe also a lot of you out there, a Caol Ila. This Caol Ila is a wonderful 16 year old finished on 1st fill sherry butt. You can clearly see by the colour that the influence of the sherry is incredibly present and if I hadn't smelled and tasted it (or selected the bottle for that matter...) I would have probably guessed Speyside purely from its colour. Though it couldn't be further away from Speyside, this Islay whisky surely shows some similarities with the Speysiders. Amazing to taste and smell what exactly the influences of a sherry cask are.

COLOUR
Dark chestnut brown
NOSE
Aaahhh... bacon and maple syrup! A slightly medicinal and unmistakeable Islay nose. There is that peat smoke and the hints of brine coming together in indeed bacon. The influence of the sherry butt is also extremely present with baked sultanas, some banana bread and more raisin cake. Further to the background, you also notice some herbal notes like heather, honeysuckle and sage, going hand in hand with touch of almond. Being an Islay lover, I'm really enthusiastic about this dram so far, and we've not even gotten to tasting this bad boy!
PALATE
And there it is, the sherry bomb! In the mouth the peatiness really falls to the background with the whisky being dominated by those lovely sherry influences. A mouthful of raisins, more maple syrup and even some red fruits like sweet red apples, drupes and banana. After swirling the spirit around a while, the campfire breaks loose and gradually starts offering the smokiness along with more toasted notes of coffee, almonds and dark caramel.
FINISH
The finish is all about the smoke and the peat, leaving you with just a memory of the sherry sweetness from the first sip. The peatiness settles beautifully with spices that have until then really lingered in the background, but suddenly break through with ginger, cloves and nutmeg in the finish. You're left behind with a marvelously developing flavour of gingerbread and a hint of mint.

CONCLUSION
A worthy final dram, if you ask our opinion. We all love Caol Ila with its medicinal/coastal peatiness and grassy first impression, and this sherry ageing really makes the dram. The often bacon-like character from Caol Ila is enriched, making it the perfect whisky with American pancakes! The salinity and nearly medicinal peat should have nudged you towards Islay. The oily but not greasy mouthfeel along with the apples, drupes and bananas would have nudged you towards Caol Ila. The grassy note in the flavour (just like yesterday as if you're walking past a freshly mowed lawn) would have taken all the doubt away automatically leading to Caol Ila.

We would like to thank you all for having joined the Blind Tasting Competition 2025 and we hope you've enjoyed it as much as we did. We do sincerely hope you will be joining us next year as well, when we'll have a new amazing line-up of Scotland's finest drams.

Slainte Mhath! From the Best of Wines Team