Kilchoman Private Single Cask 12/2007 for Friends of Kilchoman

Cask No.: 12/2007

Cask type: Ex-Bourbon Barrel

Date Filled: 17.1.2007

Date Bottled: 9.8.2018

Age: 11 yo

Strength: 57,4% abv [?]

Phenol level: 50 ppm

Number of bottles: 96

Bottle volume: 0,7 l

Distribution: Private Cask

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In 2006 and 2007, Kilchoman sold numerous casks to private individuals in order to obtain urgently needed capital for the distillery’s ongoing operations during the economically strained early years. These were almost exclusively 1st fill and 2nd fill bourbon barrels.
Later, they tried to buy back as many of these casks as possible, as the stocks of whisky from the first years had quickly become very scarce. This buy-back programme was only moderately successful, however, and most owners kept their casks and usually had them bottled after the original agreed storage period of 10 years. So there was a great wave of Kilchoman Private Cask bottlings in 2016 and 2017.

This is one of those bottlings. The group of owners known as Friends of Kilchoman, led by former Kilchoman distillery manager Malcolm Rennie, owned several casks. A few days after the one listed here, on 20 August 2018, they also had their cask 128/2007, also aged 11 years, bottled.

The low number of bottles can be explained by the fact that Kilchoman bought back the cask (or most of its contents). Also bottled on 9.8.2018, the remaining part appeared as a Distillery Shop Exclusive Release.

The alcohol content is stated as 57.4% for this release, and 54.7% for the part bottled at the same day for the distillery shop (whose label was not created until three months later). There has obviously been a mix-up with the numbers, probably stated incorrectly for the distillery-only release.

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