All about the Kilchoman distillery and its whiskies
Taste Guide: Port Wine Cask
In 2010, Kilchoman began experimenting with maturing whisky in a range of wine casks, Madeira, Port and Sauternes. Initially, they relied exclusively on full maturations, which Anthony Wills preferred to finishes. After a good three years of maturation, Anthony Wills and John MacLellan found that the Ruby Port Hogsheads had developed best. The Port Cask Matured Release at the beginning of September 2014 was the first in a series of annual limited wine cask releases
The bottling was a good 3 years old fully matured in Ruby Port casks. Due to an accident (see below), the edition was only 6,000 bottles, bottled with an alcohol content of 55.0%.
Anthony Wills wrote about the release: “We experimented with a number of different cask types to see which ones worked for a full maturation term and the ruby port casks are exceptional at just 3 years old. The palate has a wonderful balance of port influence but maintains much of Kilchoman’s signature characteristics”.
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After the highly acclaimed first Port Cask release in 2014, the 2nd edition was released at the beginning of 2018. At the time, Port casks were among the rarest of Kilchoman’s bottled casks. The first Single Port Cask bottling was not released until the end of 2019 and has only been followed by a handful of others. The Port Cask Matured 2nd Edition was therefore also the 2nd Kilchoman Port Cask release ever. For this release, 30 Ruby Port Hogsheads were selected, all of which were filled in 2014, i.e. just under 4 years old. These were both 1st fill and 2nd fill port hogsheads, i.e. some casks from the 1st edition were reused here. The edition was 10,000 bottles bottled with an alcohol content of 50% abv.
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On 28 May 2020, Kilchoman Open Day at the virtual Fèis Ìle 2020, Kilchoman launched the second limited release of 2020: Am Bùrach. Behind the mysterious-sounding name lies the story of an accident. In 2014, an operating error at the valves of the two vatting tanks used by Kilchoman to marry the casks of the larger releases led to the contents of the two tanks mixing together. One tank contained a batch of Machir Bay and the other the first Kilchoman Port cask release announced for 2014.
Anthony Wills was anything but enthusiastic about the incident, his English term “a mess” was translated into Gaelic as “Am Bùrach” by General Manager Islay Heads, giving the whole thing at least a poetic-sounding name. However, this involuntary blend was of course too good to throw away, so the decision was made to fill it back into bourbon barrels and store it again to decide what to make of it later. Incidentally, the Port Wine Matured Release was then released in 2014 in a much smaller edition than announced, as there were obviously not as many port wine casks left.
After 6 years of storage, Anthony Wills found that the contents of these casks had developed into a thoroughly delicious whisky, which was then matured for a further 6 months in small 100-litre Ruby Port Quarter casks to round it off and enhance its fruity character.
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The first finishings in Ruby Port hogsheads were released at the end of 2020, and the total number of these releases has not yet exceeded 20. However, Kilchoman has released a whole series of finishings in 100-litre Ruby Port Quarter Casks since the second half of 2020. Finishing in these small casks quickly led to a distinct port wine flavour in the whisky.
All of these releases were initially matured for around 7 years in a bourbon barrel, after which the contents were transferred to 2 Ruby Port Quarter Casks and matured in these for several months. The two quarter casks filled from a bourbon barrel were labelled by adding a “0” and a “1” to the original number of the bourbon barrel. Bourbon barrel no. 249/2012 became quarter casks 2490/2012 and 2491/2012.
Almost 20 of these bottlings were released worldwide in a short period of time (until the beginning of 2021), which enjoyed great popularity and always sold out quickly, partly due to the small number of bottles.
A new series of bottlings from the Port Quarter Casks, now used for the second time, was launched at the end of 2021. The finishing times have now been extended to up to two years in order to achieve a similar port cask influence to the freshly filled casks. In addition, the labelling of the quarter casks has been changed to a new, clearer system. An “A” and a “B” have now been added to the original cask number of the bourbon barrel. Half a dozen of these releases have appeared so far, and a few more are likely to follow. It remains to be seen whether Kilchoman will continue to work with new port quarter casks in the future.
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Within the Small Batch series for selected markets (now: Triskele Casks), whose concept is known to illustrate the influence of various “experimental” cask types on Kilchoman whisky, a bottling with port cask content was first released in mid-2019. This has been followed by half a dozen other releases worldwide.
All of the bottlings discussed here are Ruby Port maturations or finishings. Kilchoman has not yet released any bottlings from Tawny Port, White Port or Vintage Port casks. However, some of these casks are stored in the Kilchoman warehouses, so we can expect such bottlings in the near future.
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Kilchoman Port Wine Cask bottlings (Full-maturations & Finishings):
