Kilchoman Club Release 14th Edition announced

As it has done at the end of every year since 2012, Kilchoman has now announced this year’s 14th exclusive bottling for members of the Kilchoman Club.

Following last year’s nine-year-old single cask bottling of an Oloroso sherry butt, Anthony Wills and Robin Bignal have once again selected an Oloroso sherry butt, only this time it is significantly older at 16 years and filled with whisky produced from the farm’s own barley. More specifically, it is barley of the Optic variety harvested at Rockside Farm in 2008 and processed in 2009.

Kilchoman Founder Anthony Wills wrote: “We are now in position to release a variety of age statement bottlings, showcasing how our spirit evolves over longer periods in cask. This fantastic dram has a more subtle peat smoke character than our typical releases, bringing through the rich sherry notes of this 500 litre cask.”

This year, for the first time, the bottles in the well-known Kilchoman gift box feature a specially designed label depicting a stylized mash tun.

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Kilchoman Club members can purchase the bottling online on the Kilchoman website on Wednesday, December 3, 2025, from 12 noon Islay time, limited to one bottle per person. The bottles cost £139 (including UK taxes) + shipping.

Those buying a bottle of the Club Release will be automatically entered into a draw to win a three-night stay at the Kilchoman Long Field Cottage with a VIP distillery day experience. The four-bedroom cottage sits just 200m from the distillery, overlooking the barley fields of Rockside Farm and Loch Gorm, with sweeping views back toward Kilchoman.

The winner will be chosen at random and contacted by email once all Club Release bottles have been sold.

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Kilchoman bottlings of the slightly less peated 100% Islay distillate, matured in sherry casks, are generally quite rare.
On the other hand, they were clearly one of the themes of the 2025 anniversary year. As is well known, Kilchoman released not only a “normal” 100% Islay Limited Release, created from ex-bourbon casks, but also an 11-year-old 100% Oloroso Sherry Release in the fall. But at the beginning of the year, one of the four 20th Anniversary Releases was a 14-year-old 100% Islay Oloroso Sherry bottling. These three releases will allow us to make a nice age comparison of 11, 14, and 16 years in Oloroso Sherry butts.

Also worth mentioning here is the 100% Islay Oloroso single cask bottling in the Awakening Series, which was released on October 11, 2025, at the first German Whisky Live fair in Hamburg. This whisky matured for over 8 years in an Oloroso sherry hogshead and is, in our opinion, one of the best Kilchoman bottlings from this type of cask.

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Cask No.: 438/2009

Cask type: Oloroso Sherry Butt

Date Filled: 15.10.2009

Date Bottled: 11/2025

Age: 16 yo

Strength: 53,8 % abv

Level of phenols in malted barley: approx. 20 ppm

Barley variety: Optic (harvested in 2008)

Number of bottles: 616

Bottle volume: 0,7 l

Distribution: online, Kilchoman Club members exclusive

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