Kilchoman from Madeira barrels
Kilchoman, until recently the youngest whisky distillery on the Isle of Islay, has been relentless in its pursuit of. The distillates produced here have been matured, or merely finished, already in sherry, port, Madeira, wines of all kinds, and more recently even in mezcal casks. Another interesting edition of local whisky will be premiered in the coming days.
Kilchoman Madeira Cask Matured is a whisky distilled in May 2016 and matured throughout the maturation period in 46 barrels of type hogshead after Madeira. The maturation period in this case was 5 years and 3 months, and the whisky was supposed to debut as early as 2021, but bottle supply problems stood in the way at the time. The entire distillery industry - and more - struggled with supply chain disruptions last year, causing the label of the new Kilchoman to show a date of 2021, while the release takes place the following year.
The new whisky was bottled without cold filtration, without the addition of coloring caramel, after reducing the strength to 50% vol. Edition limited to 17,000 bottles. Whisky will be available soon at a retail price of £77.05 per bottle.
Kilchoman, where production began in 2005, was the first distillery launched in Scotland in the 21st century. It is the smallest whisky maker operating on the island of Islay, famous for the decidedly peaty and smoky character of whisky from here. Quite quickly it had to revise its initial assumptions, according to which it was to produce whiskey in accordance with age-old traditions, as a side business of the Rockside farm on which it was founded. First, a fire in the malt dryer forced the distillery to source its malt from Port Ellen, and soon after, it became apparent that the fields owned by the farm could not produce enough barley, so it had to be imported, and the small malting plant could only meet a fraction of the distillery's needs. And that was before the distillery's expansion, which practically doubled its production capacity, which took place in 2019. Kilchoman then received two new alembics, a mash vat and fermentation vats.
In 2017, the Ardnahoe distillery was opened in the northeast of the island and thus Kilchoman ceased to be the youngest distillery on Islay. Work is currently underway to open another whisky plant on the south coast, between the village of Port Ellen and the Laphroaig distillery. In addition, work is underway to reactivate the legendary Port Ellen, which closed in 1983. Thus, there are many indications that in two years at the latest there will be as many as eleven distilleries operating on Islay.
The House of Whisky Online offers a wide selection of whiskies from the Kilchoman distillery. We invite you to visit and see the contents of our shelves.
[28.02.2002 / photo: Kilchoman]