Kilchoman - Islay's newest distillery

As a lover of Islay malts, I was excited to learn about Kilchoman on my recent trip to Binny's. Kilchoman was founded in 2005, making it the first distillery to open on Islay in over 100 years. They age their scotch in unused Buffalo Trace bourbon barrels and unused oloroso sherry barrels.

Intrigued, I picked up a bottle of the single cask release bottled exclusively for Binny's. This cask was aged for a little over 3 years in bourbon barrels. I drink most of my whisky at barrel strength and I've never had a scotch I considered too peaty, so this malt was right up my alley. This bottling weighs in at a robust 122 proof, so be warned, this is potent stuff.

This is one of the lightest colored scotches I've seen, befitting its youth. As you're pouring it, the aroma of earthy peat fills the glass. Given how hot it is, I was surprised that the smell of alcohol was not too strong on the nose (but take a big whiff and your eyes well up, hell yeah). There's a mellow sweetness that lingers after the alcohol subsides.

It's remarkably drinkable for such a young whisky. Plenty of bite both from the alcohol and the unmatured peats. It starts off a little sweet but that quickly passes onto a nice peaty malt with a distinctive smokiness. There's some depth on the finish (and it finishes very long) that will probably develop with age. A drop of water brought out the sweetness and dulled some of the alcohol heat.

I'm really excited to see how this malt develops.

http://www.kilchomandistillery.com/

turkob wrote: They age their scotch in unused Buffalo Trace bourbon barrels and unused oloroso sherry barrels.

Admittedly I'm not a fan of the Islay Scotches, I'm just not a fan drinking burnt grass, but I just wanted to clarify the above point, I assume you mean "once filled Buffalo Trace barrels"? If they were unaged they would just be American Oak barrels.

SSDD

The box says fresh barrels. I took that to mean unused, but maybe it means used once. The website doesn't say.

turkob wrote:The box says fresh barrels. I took that to mean unused, but maybe it means used once. The website doesn't say.

Well, any barrel that comes into Buffalo Trace is unused, and all of the barrels that leave have been used once and only once (with the exception of a handful of experimental collection things...). Otherwise, what was in the barrel wasn't bourbon. Maybe "fresh" means they get the barrels directly from BT, rather than getting them after someone else has used them for something. Those bourbon barrels tend to get around.