Day 15! If you have made it this far and you enjoy peat this is going to be a good day for you. We somehow managed to get a hold of a couple of the Kensington Wine Markets exclusive bottling of Kilchoman. It is the first 10 Year Old Kilchoman to be sold in Canada! Bottled at 56.6% after maturing in an Ex-Bourbon barrel. There were just 212 bottles. I do hope you enjoy.
KILCHOMAN DISTILLERY
ISLAY SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY
These days 25% of its barley requirements come from Islay (mostly from fields around the distillery). It has a small malting floor and kiln which produces a medium-peated malt – the heavily peated with which it is mixed comes from Port Ellen. Inside the distillery, fermentation is long – helping to create fruitiness to balance the shoreline/shellfish like phenolics, while an enlightened (and pricey) wood policy has seen a high percent of first-fill ex-Bourbon and ex-Sherry casks being used. The result is that Kilchoman has hit the start of its mature period at a remarkably young age.
KILCHOMAN HISTORY
The location of Kilchoman on Islay’s west coast has some historical resonance. It was in this parish that the MacBeatha/Beaton family settled when they came across in 1300 from what is now Co. Antrim. They were doctors (a Beaton was the hereditary physician to the kings of Scotland for hundreds of years) who translated medical texts about distillation from Latin into Gaelic. There is therefore a theory (albeit unproven) that Islay was the first place where distillation took place in Scotland – and that Kilchoman parish was where it occurred.
It wasn’t so much this which caused Anthony Wills to build his farm distillery here in 2005 – it was more the fact that there was a spare steading at Rockside farm available. In building Kilchoman, the Wills family has brought farm distilling back to Islay.
Now surrounded by barley fields, the distillery has expanded once (in 2007) built new warehouses and in 2010 hired a hugely experienced manager in John MacLellan who had spent many years at the helm of Bunnahabhain. The history may be short, but the long-term vision is very much in evidence.
Tasting Notes
Nose: gentle smoke, green apple,sour keys,Smoldering fire,medicinal
Taste: friendly campfire, candied bacon,cream,nutmeg, cardamon
Finish: more campfire, burnt marshmallow,good,lingering smoked bacon,