Kilchoman - Fresh Bourbon Single Cask

Kilchoman Distillery

“Fresh Bourbon” Single Cask

Ex-Bourbon Cask

This is an increasingly rare chance to try a young Kilchoman single cask at cask strength. When Kilchoman first started releasing single casks, it shocked the whisky community with how good they were. Now that they have older stocks, you don’t often come across something like this single cask — which was aged a few months short of 4 years. The fruit notes on this whisky are stunning. This was originally selected for Cask Chasers, a well respected group which has since disbanded.

Cask #292/2018, Filled Apr. 8, 2018, Bottled Jan 10, 2022

Single Malt Scotch, 750ml, 61% abv

Non-chill filtered, natural color

For those not familiar with the Kilchoman Distillery, it was the first “new” distillery on Islay in 124 years when it was established in 2005, paving the way for a new crop of young distilleries such as Ardnahoe, Port Ellen, and soon Portintruan, Finlaggan and possibly more. But even when all those distilleries are built, this is still the only farm distillery — they operate a large farm that grows barley, something that is immediately obvious when you visit, literally dodging tractors as you work your way to the parking lot. While they do not have the capacity to grow all the barley they need to make their whiskies, no other distillery on Islay has committed to farming in any meaningful way, certainly nothing like Kilchoman has, which today remains a family-run operation by Anthony Wills and his sons (and now the family of the farm they partnered with and ultimately merged with are involved as well). Truly extraordinary whisky — and Peated Islay single malt Scotch at that.