Kilchoman STR / Oloroso Cask Matured Single Cask 681/2018 for The Distillery Shop / “Be a Bottler”

Cask No.: 681/2018

Cask type: STR Cask, Oloroso Sherry Hogshead Finish

Date Filled: 3.7.2018

Date Decanted: 2.9.2022

Date Bottled: 29.5.2025

Age: 6 yo

Finishing period: nearly 33 months

Strength: 58,0 % abv

Level of phenols in malted barley: 50 ppm

Bottle volume: 0,7 l

Barcode: 5 060210 708634

Distribution: Distillery Shop Exclusive

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“Be a bottler” is a popular Fèis Ìle programme item at the Kilchoman Open Days, where visitors can fill their very own bottles of Kilchoman whisky. In the past, this usually involved the standard Machir Bay release, but since Fèis Ìle 2018, the offer has been extended to single casks.

A very unusual cask was bottled at Fèis Ìle 2025: an STR / Oloroso Cask Matured Single Cask. Each participant in the ‘Be a Bottler’ events filled a bottle and labelled the bottle and box. The remaining bottles will be sold in the visitor centre as a Distillery Shop Exclusive Release.

The whisky was initially matured for a good four years in an STR cask (shaved, toasted & re-charred ex-red wine hogshead) and was decanted into an Oloroso hogshead on 2 September 2022, where it was finished for just under 33 months. What makes the Oloroso Hogshead special is not that it is a refill cask, but that it was previously used to finish bourbon barrels. To produce Sanaig, Kilchoman requires countless Oloroso sherry hogsheads, in which the bourbon cask portion of Sanaig is finished. Unlike casks for full maturation, which Kilchoman generally only uses twice, these finishing casks are used much more frequently. In this case, they were also used experimentally for the finishing of an STR cask.

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“Be a Bottler” 2025