Welcome

Kilchoman is one of eleven whisky distilleries currently in operation on the Scottish Hebridean island of Islay. Whisky lovers around the world associate the name Islay primarily with heavily peated whiskies. For fans of this type of whisky – including the creators of this website – Islay is literally whisky heaven. Every year, tens of thousands of whisky fans visit the island and its distilleries to sample their favourite whiskies on site.

The Kilchoman Distillery is one of the youngest on the island. When it began production in 2005, it was the first new whisky distillery on Islay in 124 years. With it, founder Anthony Wills sought to revive the concept of a farm distillery, as had been customary in Scotland for centuries, where surplus barley harvested on a farm was distilled into whisky during the winter months and thus ‘preserved’. Under the slogan ‘from barley to bottle’, Kilchoman realised a concept that remains unique in Scotland to this day, in which every stage of production – from growing the barley on its own farm, through malting, kilning, mashing, fermentation, distillation and ageing, right through to bottling – is carried out on site. From day one, a visitor centre and café attracted visitors, who were able to witness first-hand Kilchoman’s rapid development into an extremely popular and successful distillery.

The creators of the Kilchomania website have followed this development from the very beginning and, thanks to the whisky’s unique quality and the way things are run at Kilchoman, quickly became fans of this distillery – ‘Kilchomaniacs’, as it were. Through this website, we aim to share the knowledge we have gained about Kilchoman over the years, along with our enthusiasm for this whisky, with other whisky lovers.

What can users find on our site? A regularly updated News page provides information on all the latest developments concerning the distillery and its whiskies, whilst the Timeline traces the history of Kilchoman from its planning stages onwards. The Taste Guide page introduces to the world of the various Kilchoman whiskies. The Releases page offers a reliable database of all bottlings to date, ranging from General and Limited Releases, through Small Batches, to the many Single Cask Releases.

We are very interested in feedback from visitors to kilchomania.com. Beyond praise and criticism, we would be grateful if you could let us know about any Kilchoman-related information you were unable to find on our site, any news, or any missing bottlings. Perhaps, as a whisky fan, you might even like to become a contributor to this site? Please write to us at hansi@kilchomania.com.

And now: have fun!