Dram data:
Distillery: Kilchoman
Bottler: Official bottling / exclusively for distillery shop
Distilled: 14.11.2007
Bottled: 24.05.2013
Age: 5 years
Limitation: 270 bottles
Price at the time of purchasing: ?
Cask: Single sherry cask #3009/2007
Alcohol: 59,1%
Unchillfiltered & natural color
Whiskybase link
Tasting notes:
The dram has a deep, copper-gold color and features quite long legs. The nose is immediately met with a complex mixture of dark fruits and berries, toffee, lemon rinds, ripe peaches, well integrated smoke and faint hints of earth and floral notes. After a few minutes the sweetnes gets more and more pronounced. On the palate there’s a big initial hit of alcohol, toffee sweetness, dark chocolate met with a beginning dryness and even more oily smoke. The addition of a drop of water breaks the initial harshness of the alcohol and brings forth more of the earthy sweet flavors. The finish is warming, smoky sweet and long.
Verdict:
A very sweet, oily dram with lots of fruit and well integrated smoke. A bit more complex on the nose (I could smell this for hours) than on the palate. I tasted this blind and first thought of a Port Charlotte with lots of sherry casks in the mix. But, oh well, Kilchoman isn’t far from Bruichladdich, just a small drive up the road and the peating level of PC and Kilchoman is about the same. I would’ve guessed it at about 10 years of age which says a whole lot about the quality of the Kilchoman spirit! My brother and I had a discussion in the distillery shop on who was to buy the bottle (traveling light with backpacks we didn’t by one each) – he was quicker in procuring his credit card. Big mistake – for me 😉
Score: 88/100