13 yo Bourbon Single Cask 38/2007 for House of Malt & The Chase Collection

The British whisky dealer House of Malt recently released a new Kilchoman single cask bottling. This bottling of cask no. 38/2007 is the oldest single cask Kilchoman released to date, the whisky spent 13 years in a 1st Fill ex-Bourbon barrel (distilled on 21.2.2007, bottled on 28.2.2020). 236 bottles were bottled with an alcohol content of 53,3 % abv.
As is well known, age records alone do not tell anything about the quality of a whisky, but the present bottling found an extremely positive echo among the Kilchomania members, as the following taste notes by Archer and the assigned score of 90 show. This 13-year-old ranks among the top group of Kilchoman bourbon cask releases for us, made up of a few 10, 11 and 12-year-olds.

Nose :
In the first contact with the nose, he initially appears “calm” and acts with restraint. Mild, almost delicate smoke – at least initially. Vanilla, fresh cookie dough, yeast, honey and white chocolate. With time, it picks up speed, delivering seaweed and a pinch of pepper, the smoke note becomes clearer and more prominent. Lemon water, orange slices, almonds.

Taste:
Strong, smoky and sweet start. Apricots and peaches, fresh apple. A herbal mix of marjoram, chervil and tarragon. Creamy and hardly dry. Cafe au lait, warm cocoa. The fruits as a constant companion, the herbal mixture as a counterbalance.

Finish:
Long, increasingly dry and peaty. A fresh breeze from the sea, seaweed, salt, shell water – and still that sweetness of ripe apricots and peaches.

Just as well as Kilchoman works young, the taste experience with this 13-year-old “Methusalem” from the bourbon barrel is hard to get right. What is surprising are the enduring fruity notes it reveals from nose to finish. Delicious.

90/100 points