Join us for another ‘Live Tasting’ on Thursday 8th April at 7pm Islay Time.

Taste along with your Kilchoman Tasting Glass as we take you through two of our Core Range whiskies and two 2021 Pre-Release samples, explaining how we make each whisky and what unique character and flavours can be found in each dram. Click here to order your whisky tasting packs from our online shop.  (*Please note the image isn’t the exact whiskies in the pack).

Machir Bay – 46% (20ml) – Our signature peated single malt is a vatting of Kilchoman matured in a high proportion of bourbon casks with a small sherry cask influence.

Sanaig – 46% (20ml) – Although also matured in both sherry and bourbon casks, Sanaig has a high proportion of oloroso influence, giving a vastly different character to the whisky.

PX Sherry Matured – 47.3% (20ml) – This limited edition is a vatting of 33 casks, 9 fully matured in Pedro Ximénez sherry casks and 24 finished in PX casks for between 12 and 18 months.

Ruby Port Single Cask Finish – 55.1% (20ml) – This single cask has been matured in a fresh Bourbon Barrel for over six years before being finished in a Ruby Port quarter cask for a year.

Why not pair your drams with some delicious chocolate?  Two of the COCO chocolate bars that we paired with our core range whiskies at the end of last year are now available to order from our online shop.  The Atlantic sea salt and lime milk chocolate pairs perfectly with our Machir Bay whisky and the spiciness from the nutmeg, allspice and cloves of the Haggis dark chocolate bar works beautifully with the sherry cask influence of Sanaig.

Even if you don’t manage to get a tasting pack, please still pour yourself a dram, join us and interact with the guys in the comments section during the tasting.  Feel free to also ask any and all questions you want!  We will be live on our Facebook page and Youtube Channel.

At Kilchoman we mature all our casks in traditional dunnage warehouses here on the west coast of Islay.  Not only is the type of warehouse important to the character of a whisky but also the location, with each cask absorbing all the microclimatic differences Islay has to offer.

There are three main methods used for maturing casks in warehouses, and some distilleries use more than one.  The traditional method of ‘dunnage’ and then the more modern trend of ‘racked’ and ‘palletised’ warehousing.

Dunnage – Dunnage warehouses are the traditional warehouse, low in height with thick walls and an earthen floor.  Inside, casks are stacked on their sides, no more than three barrels high in stows (rows) which helps to ensure good air circulation and an even maturation throughout.  The earthen floor means a dunnage warehouse is naturally humid with minimal seasonal weather variance in Scotland, the climate inside the warehouse remains constant over daily and yearly cycles.  This high humidity and constant temperature results in all casks across the warehouse maturing at a consistent rate, being influenced by the humid conditions created by the surrounding soil.

However, dunnage warehouses are expensive to run, the earthen floor and low ceiling, although benefits to a maturing cask, result in higher costs as machines (such as forklifts) cannot be used.  So, much like all other aspects of whisky-making life at Kilchoman, cask management is labour-intensive and must be done by hand.

Racked & Palletised – In a racked warehouse, casks will be found stacked on their sides in steel frames, sometimes 12 or more high, while a palletised warehouse has casks stacked on their ends on pallets, often 6 or 8 layers high. The more modern racked and palletised warehouses came to prominence when distilleries expanded in size and the traditional onsite dunnage warehouses could no longer handle the number of casks being produced.  Contrary to Dunnage, these warehouses are a lot taller, allowing for more barrels to be stacked on top of each other and have a concrete floor throughout.  An obvious advantage to using this type of warehousing is the large number of casks that can be stored inside and the relative ease to access these casks. Forklifts and other machines can freely roam and manage the maturing whisky, an accountant’s dream compared to the labour-intensive dunnage warehouses.

Inside a racked or palletised warehouse there is a relatively lower humidity due to the concrete floors and a more seasonal change in temperature over the months and years of maturation.  The lower casks will be cooler and more humid, more like that of a dunnage warehouse, the upper casks will be hotter with a lower humidity, leading to greater evaporation loss of water.  This variation in conditions throughout the warehouse can mean maturation becomes more inconsistent and unpredictable across the warehouse.

As well as the type of warehouse, the location of where it is situated is also an influencing factor.  Whether it be the amount of wind, sun, rain or snow, the local climate can form an important part of cask maturation.  For example, a dunnage warehouse taking up the moisture in the ground from water-soaked soil or a racked/palletised warehouse heating up due to the sun beating down on its roof (not always a problem in some parts of Scotland).

There are many variables throughout the whisky-making process and it is often difficult to say for sure what is the ‘best’ or ‘right’ way, something which makes whisky so fascinating.  However, at Kilchoman we like to stick with tradition and mature in dunnage warehouses on Islay, as distillers would have hundreds of years ago.  It might mean a little more hard graft for the team manoeuvring each cask by hand, but the cool humid temperature and consistent long term maturation in our dunnage warehouses help make Kilchoman single malt taste the way it does today.

Throughout 2020 we hosted various online live whisky tastings where people from around the world had the opportunity to order tasting packs so they could get the full tasting experience from the comfort of their own home.  The live events included pairing the core range whiskies with a variety of fantastic foods from other Scottish producers.  Participants were able to order the food tasting packs as well as the whiskies to get the full tasting experience.  From highland venison to island cheese and west coast seafood, these tastings proved to be popular with both whisky beginners and connoisseurs alike.  The final food pairing had a slightly more international feel through a collaboration with Edinburgh based company COCO chocolatier who work with cacao farmers across Colombia.

Following on from the success of this, we now have two of the chocolate varieties in branded packaging to pair with the well-known expressions – Machir Bay and Sanaig.

Machir Bay is a vatting of Kilchoman matured in a high proportion of bourbon barrels which creates a distinct balance of Islay character and fresh floral complexity.  The fresh lime flavour and the sweetness from the chocolate balances very well with the citrus, fresh fruits and vanilla character of Machir Bay.

Sanaig is matured in a high proportion of oloroso sherry hogsheads which imparts a balance of rich, dried fruits and peat smoke.  The spiciness from the nutmeg, allspice and cloves works beautifully with the sherry cask influence of Sanaig.

The whisky and chocolate can both be ordered from our website by clicking here

Join us for another ‘Live Tasting’ on Thursday 18th February at 7pm Islay time.

Taste along with your Kilchoman Tasting Glass as we take you through two of our Core Range whiskies and two 2021 Pre-Release samples, explaining how we make each whisky and what unique character and flavours can be found in each dram. You can order your whisky tasting packs from our online shop – click here

Machir Bay – 46% (20ml) – Our signature peated single malt is a vatting of Kilchoman matured in a high proportion of bourbon casks with a small sherry cask influence.

Sanaig – 46% (20ml) – Although also matured in both sherry and bourbon casks, Sanaig has a high proportion of oloroso influence, giving a vastly different character to the whisky.

Loch Gorm 2021 – 46% (20ml) Loch Gorm is our annual limited edition matured entirely in sherry casks. The 2021 edition (due for release in March) is a vatting of 24 oloroso sherry butts filled in 2011 and 2012.

Comraich Batch 4 – 55% (20ml) This range is exclusively available through our Kilchoman Comraich bars. We have partnered with some of the best whisky bars around the world, offering a wide range of Kilchoman single malts. Click here to learn more about the Kilchoman Comraich and find your nearest bar.

Why not pair your drams with some delicious chocolate?  Two of the COCO chocolate bars that we paired with our core range whiskies at the end of last year are now available to order from our online shop.  The Atlantic sea salt and lime milk chocolate pairs perfectly with our Machir Bay whisky and the spiciness from the nutmeg, allspice and cloves of the Haggis dark chocolate bar works beautifully with the sherry cask influence of Sanaig.

Our fourth and final limited edition of the year, the Fino Sherry Matured, will be available worldwide from this week.

The second of our Autumn releases comes in the form of a Fino Sherry Matured limited edition, our first global release of this cask type. The whisky has spent its full maturation in fino casks previously used by Bodega Miguel Martin in Spain, 11 fresh butts and 1 refill butt.

This release follows on from other limited-edition expressions using experimental cask maturations from Kilchoman, full term maturations in port, madeira, sauternes, red wine and STR cask types, amongst others. This particular release is limited to just 10,500 bottles worldwide.

Our core range of whiskies include oloroso sherry in their maturation, a medium-dry style of sherry which gives our whiskies a range of cooked and dried fruit influence. Fino differs from this by being a drier, more saline type of sherry which gives Kilchoman whisky layers of fragrant green apple, balancing beautifully with the citrus sweetness, cooked fruits and maritime peat smoke of our spirit.

“We have previously bottled a fino sherry matured release for our Kilchoman Club members but this will be a first global release. It’s exciting to have a new cask type available for the Kilchoman followers to taste. The fresh green apple character certainly adds a new element compared to what we’ve released before”

The Fino Sherry Matured is available from your regular Kilchoman stockist now. If it isn’t there yet, then it will be soon! Please get in contact with us if you have any questions about finding a bottle near you. A limited number of bottles will also be released via our website shop on Wednesday 14th at 2pm UK time (limited to one bottle per person) £74.52.