The 2015 harvest is finally underway here at Kilchoman. In the coming weeks around 100 tonnes of malting barley will be harvested from the fields surrounding the distillery and after a bit of shovelling, bubbling, maturing and bottling it will become Scotland’s only single malt created on-site from Barley to Bottling.
We are yet to analyse this year’s crop however after a rather damp June and July the weather was much improved from early August and hopes are high that the 2015 harvest will be as good as ever! Once the harvesting is complete the barley will be dried and stored ready to be floor malted in two tonne batches here at the distillery throughout 2016. Click here to see an animation showing how we transform our barley into Kilchoman single malt whisky.
This year we released the 5th Edition of our annually released 100% Islay range, despite being the newest and smallest distillery on Islay we are proud to be the only distillery in Scotland producing Single Malt Whisky using traditional farm distillery methods. We look forward to tasting this year’s crop sometime in the 2020’s but we have quite a bit of work to do between now and then…
On Monday September the 7th at 10am we will release our first ever 7 year old whisky. The Limited Edition 2008 Vintage is a vatting of fresh ex American bourbon barrels filled in July 2008 and bottled in August 2015. This latest release is a continuation of our by-annually released Vintage range, having previously bottled 2006 and 2007 Vintages in 2011 and 2013.
Anthony Wills, Kilchoman Founder and Managing Director; ‘The 2008 Vintage is a classic bourbon barrel aged Kilchoman however the additional maturation has added layers of soft fruit and sweetness not seen in previous releases. This latest vintage release makes me very excited about the future development of Kilchoman single malt.’
The 2008 Vintage will be available to buy from our Whisky Shop on Monday at 10am priced at £55.50. It will also be available through our retail partners worldwide in the coming weeks. Please contact us it you’d like more info.
Due to the limited number of bottles the 2008 Vintage will be limited to one bottle per person from the Kilchoman website.
The Kilchoman barley is ripening nicely in the recent good weather we have been enjoying on Islay. The good weather appears to have disappeared for the time being but the barley continues to grow nevertheless. In a few weeks the combine will be dusted off and put into action, all being well the barley will be dried and stored within a month.
Smoked Gigha Halibut use old Kilchoman barrels to smoke their delicious halibut with and we would like to congratulate them on just winning 3 gold stars in the Great Taste Awards as well as being in the top 50 foods of the awards.
To be in this lofted company each of these products has been part of an exhaustive judging process: 10,000 entries blind-tasted by over 400 judges at 49 judging days in six different locations.
We like to believe the Kilchoman barrels made the difference!
(Smoked Gigha Halibut with the Inaugural Release)
We are delighted to announce that all three of our ‘core releases’ as we call them, Machir Bay, Loch Gorm and 100% Islay have won medals at the 2015 IWSC (International Wine and Spirits Competition). Machir Bay won a Gold, Loch Gorm a Silver Outstanding and 100% Islay won a Silver. We are very pleased to have done so well at what is widely considered the foremost whisky and spirits awards of the year. We’re on a bit of an awards hot streak! Always nice to win awards.
Machir Bay has been awarded Master of the under 12 year old Islay Single Malt category in The Spirits Business 2015 Scotch Whisky Masters. Gold Medals were also awarded to Kilchoman Loch Gorm and 100% Islay 5th Edition completing a full house of medals for our current range.
Anthony Wills, Kilchoman Founder and Managing Director; ‘It is a fantastic achievement for Kilchoman to go up against such tough competition and come out on top. It is testament to all the daily hard work done by the distillery team’
The local bragging rights are ours! Take a look at the official results here
Most at the distillery have now recovered from the chaos of Feis Ile, the distillery seems almost calm in comparison to the craziness of festival week. We hope everyone who made the journey enjoyed a week of Islay merriment! At Kilchoman we had a fantastic week of events which culminated in our open day on Thursday when music, food and most importantly Kilchoman single malt were heartily appreciated from dawn to dusk. A record number of visitors to Kilchoman had free rein to snoop around (almost) every corner of the distillery and taste our full range of whisky including many early releases and exclusive single cask samples which are no-longer available.
Our thanks go to everyone who came along to celebrate 10 years of Kilchoman and we hope to see you all again next year… if not sooner!!
Below, a very proud Anthony Wills stands with the first cask ever filled at Kilchoman! It has been an eventful 10 years since Anthony founded Kilchoman back in 2005 and we look forward to many more years to come!
The Feis Ile is almost upon us and Islay is filling up fast! Our Open Day is on Thursday 28th May and hope to see you all there to celebrate 10 years of Kilchoman!
The Feis Ile 2015 release is a vatting of 3 fresh bourbon barrels at 7 years of age, the oldest release bottled so far. There are 742 individually numbered bottles at 58.2%abv.
This release will be available on the Open Day from the distillery so get yourself over to Kilchoman and have a drink, burger, listen to some music and grab a Feis Ile bottle!
The price is £78.60 and limited to 1 bottle per person
As many of you know 2015 is our 10th Anniversary year, we in fact opened the visitor centre doors to the public at Feis Ile 2005 although we didn’t produce any spirit until early December. To celebrate the 10th Anniversary year we have created a special 10th anniversary release to mark the occasion!
The 10th anniversary release is a vatting of sherry and bourbon casks filled between 2005 and 2012 and includes whisky from Cask Number 01/2005, the first cask ever filled at Kilchoman. This limited edition is just 3,000 bottles at cask strength (58.2%abv). Bottles are all individually hand numbered and will be available from Saturday 23rd.
This will be on sale from the distillery shop only and not online. The price will be £88.80.
*maximum 2 bottles per person
We are very proud to have sponsored the Islay Pipe Band since 2012, the band has been hugely successful over the years and are a fantastic advertisement for Islay. In the past few years our sponsorship has taken the form of a cask of whisky selected by John MacLellan, bottled and sold from the distillery with all the proceeds going to the Pipe Band. This year’s Islay Pipe Band single cask is a bourbon barrel filled in 2010 and finished a Pedro Ximenez sherry cask for 2 months prior to bottling. Due to the nature of the bottling we are only able to accept cash payments at the distillery shop. The release will available from Monday the 18th of May.
