Taste Guide: Octave / Quarter Cask

On 26 September 2016, after the “Original Cask Strength Release” of 2014, Kilchoman presented a very special cask maturation with the second edition of the series: a “Quarter Cask Matured Release”. As the name suggests, quarter casks are only a quarter of the size of a 500 litre cask, and the significantly larger inner surface area of the cask compared to the volume leads to more intensive wood contact of the maturing distillate. For this reason, some distilleries like to use quarter casks for finishing – the Laphroaig Quarter Cask Release, for example, is certainly familiar to every whisky lover.

For the “Original Cask Strength – Quarter Cask Matured Release”, 95 of the 132 casks Kilchoman filled in October 2010 as a first maturation experiment were used. The yield was 12,000 bottles, bottled in September 2016 with an age of just under 6 years and an alcohol content of 56.9 %.

Anthony Wills wrote about the release: »The Original Cask Strength releases allow us to show off Kilchoman at its natural powerful best. By bottling at cask strength, without chill filtering or colouring, the natural full bodied texture and character of the single malt shines through on both the nose and the pallet.«

Prior to the Quarter Cask Matured Release, two single cask bottlings had already been released: the first in May 2014 for the Islay Pipe Band sponsored by Kilchoman, then at the end of 2015 an almost five-year bottling for Master of Malt.
The Islay Pipe Band bottling was confusingly called an Octave Cask, because the terms Quarter Cask and Octave Cask are used very inconsistently by Kilchoman. Normally, a cask with a capacity of about 50 litres is called an Octave Cask, so it should be noted that all of the casks used by Kilchoman, which by the way were specially made by a cooperage from bourbon cask staves, had a capacity of about 100 litres, regardless of whether Quarter Cask or Octave Cask is written on the label.

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The few casks not used for the Quarter Cask Matured Release were not left to mature further – there was a risk that the whisky would have developed an extremely woody flavour very quickly – but were instead mostly decanted (“re-racked”) into bourbon barrels. At least one of the casks underwent a sherry finish (Sherry Cask Finished Octave for Milroy’s of Soho). Of the whiskies transferred to bourbon barrels, a 10-year-old single cask release was bottled for Roco Wine & Spirits from Sacramento (initially 5 years in two quarter casks, followed by just under 5 years in a Buffalo Trace bourbon barrel); whilst the remainder were added to the 13-year-old release in 2025 and thus put to use after all.

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In addition to the ex-bourbon quarter casks discussed here, Kilchoman has also been using port quarter casks for some time. The resulting bottlings are listed in the Taste Guide: Port Cask.

However, the curiosity of a private Quarter Sherry Cask bottling should be dealt with here:

The German whisky lover Arno Dittel managed to convince Anthony Wills to fill his private Quarter Sherry cask with Kilchoman New Make in 2010, one of the few cases where Kilchoman filled a foreign cask.

He had acquired the fresh sherry quarter cask from the Springbank distillery and let it mature there from May 2001 to the beginning of 2010. The Springbank Private Bottling was then released under the name “Arno`s 1st” (Springbank 2001 Private Bottling – Ratings and reviews – Whiskybase). He then had the cask transported to Kilchoman and there it was filled as a now Refill Sherry Quarter Cask on 13 May 2010 and bottled again after a good 8 years under the name “Arno’s 2nd”. The yield was 87 bottles of a very intense sherry whisky.

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Kilchoman Bourbon Octave / Quarter Cask Releases:

Release	Cask No.	Filled	Bottled	Maturation
Octave Single Cask for Islay Pipe Band	581/2010	07.10.2010	22.05.2014	3.5 years
Quarter Single Cask for Master of Malt	582/2010	07.10.2010	05.09.2015	nearly 5 years
Kilchoman Original Cask Strength – Quarter Cask		10/2010	09/2016	nearly 6 years
Octave Single Cask for Drinks by the Dram	566/2010	07.10.2010	10.10.2016	over 5 years
Sherry Cask Finished Octave for Milroy´s of Soho	568/2010	07.10.2010	25.10.2016	over 5 years, Sherry Finish
9 yo Single Cask for Roco Wine & Spirits	1004/2010	20.10.2010	01.10.2020	5 years in Quarter Casks, nearly 5 years in a Bourbon Barrel
13 Years Old Release			02/2025	Bourbon Barrels / “Octave” Casks / Calvados Cask (Finishings)

Kilchoman Sherry Quarter Cask Release:

Release	Cask No.	Filled	Bottled	Maturation
Private Refill Sherry Cask for Arno´s 2nd	262/2010	13.05.2010	25.02.2019	over 8 years

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