Drammers Kilchoman 4 August 2024 James Wills Online Tasting Drammers Club DRINQY Scotch Islay Whisky Buy Online.png
Drammers Kilchoman 4 August 2024 James Wills Online Tasting Drammers Club DRINQY Scotch Islay Whisky Buy Online.png

Aug. 4: Online Kilchoman Tasting with James Wills...

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Fellow Drammers!

Our annual online Kilchoman tasting will be on Sunday, August 4th, starting at Noon Pacific / 3pm Eastern in the US and 8pm in Scotland. This will be a blowout lineup — 10 expressions, including 3 very special releases that were released at their big annual festival at the distillery last month for Feis Ile (we were on hand to scoop up the bottles, which sold out within 2 hours). For those unfamiliar with James Wills, he is the head of Sales and Marketing for the company, not to mention one of the sons of Founder Anthony Wills, and we’ve had the pleasure of welcoming him for several online tastings with us over the last few years.

As for Kilchoman, if you’re not familiar with the distillery, it was the first “new” distillery on Islay in 124 years when it was established in 2005, paving the way for a new crop of young distilleries such as Ardnahoe, Port Ellen, and soon Portintruan, Finlaggan and possibly more. But even when all those distilleries are built, to our knowledge this will still be the only farm distillery on Islay — they operate a large farm that grows barley, something that is immediately obvious when you visit, literally dodging tractors as you work your way to the parking lot. While they do not have the capacity to grow all the barley they need to make their whiskies, no other distillery on Islay has committed to farming in any meaningful way, certainly nothing like Kilchoman has, which today remains a family-run operation by Anthony Wills and his sons (and now the family of the farm they partnered with and ultimately merged with are involved as well). Truly extraordinary whisky — and Peated Islay single malt Scotch at that.

Now, the lineup! We’re very proud to be able to have assembled this incredible lineup with you — 10 expressions, 3 of them are likely once in a lifetime pours, only available at Kilchoman’s “Open Day” at the Feis Ile festival last month. The other 7 are a little less cruel in that if you like what you taste, at least a few bottles will be available for sale through our retail partner www.DRINQY.com — they’re a mix of unusual single casks, and other fun expressions, drumroll please…

  • Feis Ile 2024 Kilchoman Open Day Bottling - UNPEATED!. This was a bit of a shocker — their fest release this year was unpeated — and was one of our favorite festival drams this year. Aged for 12 years, bourbon matured. 100% Islay, a vatting of 2 fresh ex-bourbon barrels, distilled in 2011. Why unpeated? It may have something to do with James and his brother accidentally burning down the malt barn because they’d left it to go watch a rugby match, ahem. We’ll get into that during the tasting no doubt. But obviously, since this was made from just 2 ex-bourbon casks, there were VERY few bottles of this available at the festival this year, and we’ve got two of them! 53% abv.

  • Distillery Exclusive White Port Single Cask (Feis 2024 Release). As soon as we arrived at the distillery for the festival this year, of course we picked up the Feis bottle, but they also tend to release a couple special single casks that day as well. This was one of them. Cask 2015/909. Filled Nov. 18, 2015, bottled May 13, 2024 (so 8yo). 56.9% abv.

  • Distillery Exclusive Handfill Marsala Single Cask (Feis 2024 Release). Another release at the festival, Cask #1180/2016. Filled December 19, 2016, and hand-filled by yours truly on May 30, 2024. 50 PPM, 56.6% abv.

  • Kilchoman 13yo Ex-Bourbon Cask. Cask #319/2010. Filled June 29, 2010, Bottled June 30, 2023. 57% abv.

  • 100% Islay 13th Edition (2023). This is one of the most sought-after of the Kilchoman range — their annual limited edition 100% Islay series (so, the key difference vs. their other whiskies is this whisky is made entirely with barley grown on Islay. This 2023 (13th) Edition was limited to only 13,000 bottles, distilled from their 2012, 2013 and 2014 barley harvests before being matured for a minimum of 8 years in 44 bourbon barrels. The Peating level is 20ppm, and the barley varietal is publican. (Available at DRINQY.com here)

  • Single Cask Blanc de Blancs Finish. Impex Cask Evolution 02/2023. Cask #1108/2016, Filled Nov. 26, 2016, Bottled July 10, 2023, 56.2% abv (Available at DRINQY.com here).

  • Cognac Cask Matured (2023 Ed.). 50% abv. (cask details to come)

  • Fino Sherry Cask. 50% abv. (cask details to come)

  • Drammers Pick! STR Cask Finish, 9.5yo. Kilchoman is exceptionally good in an STR cask. Cask #2011/227, 14 month STR finish, 50 PPM / 53.4% abv

  • “Fresh Bourbon” Single Cask, Ex-Bourbon Cask. This is an increasingly rare chance to try a young Kilchoman single cask at cask strength. When Kilchoman first started releasing single casks, it shocked the whisky community with how good they were. Now that they have older stocks, you don’t often come across something like this single cask — which was aged a few months short of 4 years. The fruit notes on this whisky are stunning. This was originally selected for Cask Chasers, a well respected group which has since disbanded. Cask #292/2018, Filled Apr. 8, 2018, Bottled Jan 10, 2022, 61% abv. (Available at DRINQY.com here).

How about that for a lineup! We hope you can join us!