New Kilchoman Core Range Release: Rockside 11 yo

With the release of “Rockside 11 years old”, the Kilchoman Distillery has now reached a new milestone in its history that cannot be praised highly enough. Twenty years after its founding, there is finally a permanently available bottling produced exclusively from barley grown at Kilchoman’s Rockside Farm.

The bottlings known as 100% Islay or “Single Farm Single Malts” – that is, the whiskies produced entirely at Kilchoman “from barley to bottle” – are, as is well known, Kilchoman’s raison d’être (“ the reason for being”), as Anthony Wills had conceived the distillery from the outset as Islay’s farm distillery. The fact that this vision is only now, after 20 years, finally being realised with a core range release is linked to the difficult early years at Kilchoman in general and the 100% Islay releases in particular. Shortly after production began at Kilchoman, a fire destroyed the kiln. Due to a lack of funds, it could not be rebuilt until the end of 2007, and the first 100% Islay whiskies were then put into casks in early 2008. The Kilchoman 100% Islay Inaugural Release was then released in June 2011, just under two years after Kilchoman’s Inaugural Release, which was made from Port Ellen malt.

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Since then, Kilchoman has released a limited-edition 100% Islay Release every year, with an annual output of approximately 10,000 to 15,000 bottles. The regular availability of this bottling, alongside numerous single-cask releases, kept Kilchoman’s status as a farm distillery alive, so that most whisky lovers were probably unaware that, 20 years after the distillery was founded, there was still no 100% Islay core range release.

In addition to the teething problems described above, insufficient stock of 100% Islay whisky meant that it was only now possible to venture into producing a bottling that would be consistently available worldwide. Whilst whisky production at Kilchoman was already significantly lower overall in the early years than it is today, the distillery also had only 100 t of Rockside barley available annually; the farm’s former owner, Mark French, would not provide any more than that. With the purchase of Rockside Farm in 2015, Kilchoman was then not only able to draw on the farm’s entire barley harvest, but the yield has also been gradually increased since then through the improvement of further fields.

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It is therefore no wonder that this release bears an age statement of 11 years; for those in the know, this not only references Kilchoman’s eventful history, but also marks, incidentally, the first Kilchoman Core Range release to feature an age statement.

For this bottling, Anthony Wills used approximately 80% Bourbon casks and 20% Oloroso sherry casks. The distinctive fruitiness of the 100% Islay release – which is slightly less peated at 20 ppm and bottled at 46% – comes through beautifully here (I was able to taste the whisky in advance – thank you, Kilchoman!). Alongside fruit compote, tropical fruits and white grapes, I particularly like a note of grilled pineapple on the nose and on the palate. A lovely, well-balanced whisky that suits the distillery perfectly as one of its core range products!

There won’t be a new 100% Islay Limited Release this year, but Kilchoman certainly reserves the right to release other 100% Islay expressions in the future, which could differ, for example, in age and cask composition.

The bottling is now available from Kilchoman’s importers; the RRP in Germany is €59.80.

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