My final verdict in what I think of a whisky almost never comes on the day I crack open a bottle. Never, that is, unless the whisky is abysmal, which, now that I do my research before buying anything, is rare. Kilchoman isn't available in my state aside from special order, so a friend in Chi-city picked this up for me. I had expressed an interest ever since Whisky Advocate had awarded this a 95. I'm an Islay fan, and the intensity of cask strength, these days, is right up my alley. My friend surprised me with it actually. Over the course of the pandemic, we've had periodic FaceTime calls where we sip whisky and reflect on the state of our lives, and I'd expressed an interest in this, and he went out and got it for me and got it to me. He wanted the two of us, he said, to open the bottle together, over FaceTime, and have the same experience. And I was down with that, so one night back in late-June, with the wife and kids in bed, I dialed him up and we indulged. "That an Islay," I thought, "It's definitely a cask strength Islay." Profound, isn't it? The complexity of my initial assessment? I wasn't sure what I thought. The first whiff took a few nose hairs with it, but that was to be expected. What else was I getting? We discussed: obviously, with an Islay, the usual suspects are peat, sea salt, iodine with a little bit of citrus mixed in. For me, I'm going to say there's a lemony tinge. And with certain scotches that lemony tinge can go south quick, but here's it's refreshing. Less Pine Sol (here I'm thinking of Cutty Sark, which isn't fair since that's a blend and a Speyside, I believe) than an actual burst of fresh lemon like you'd squirt on your cod. I was also getting a little bit of strawberry on the back end of the nose, though now, sitting before the screen, trying to sum up my experience of Kilchoman's Machir Bay Cask Strength 2020 Festive Edition, that berry scent is muted with the combination of the lemon and saline scents coming through stronger. I'm also detecting at times the faint trace of rubber, though it's not disgusting, tires peeled out on the road after a quick stop rubber so much as new toy fresh out of the box trace of childhood nostalgia rubber that's more appealing, and because it's not quite prominent, I'm digging on it, and in all honesty, it's mingling with what might be the medicinal iodine quality so prevalent in Islay scotches, and that makes it more appealing somehow, even though I can't explain how because sometimes words just fail to measure up to the reality of the five senses, don't they? I have to admit, of course, I wasn't getting as much of this on my first encounter as I would after living with the bottle for three months. It was mostly just, "It's an Islay. Definitely a cask strength Islay." Though it was also difficult because, although I loved opening the bottle with my friend in a different city on the other end of the line, I wanted to offer a more impressive critique than, "It's an Islay. Definitely a cask strength Islay." After all, in the discussions leading up to this moment, I'd been on the other end of the call recommending whiskies to him. While I never would have positioned myself as an aesthete (there are plenty of people out there with far more sensitive, finely developed palates than mine), I do a great deal of background research before diving into my drams, and I can generally suggest something in a person's wheelhouse if I know what whiskies they've enjoyed in the past. In any case, after a moment of taking in the aroma, we moved on to the taste. And I'm sorry to say that my first impression of the palate didn't have more to offer than what I was getting on the nose (i.e., burnt hairs and intensity). Now, of course, here's the thing I should explain about how I opened my short essay on Machir Bay here, stating that I can't come to a final verdict until I've lived with a whisky over time. A week later, while my dad was over, I offered him a taste of this, and he liked it. And for a comparison, I poured him a measure of Ardbeg's Wee Beastie, and the Wee Beastie, which we'd previously enjoyed (and which I had formerly recommended to the friend who bought me the Kilchoman) was like drinking a glass of water next to the Kilchoman. Flavors that seemed prominent when starting off with the Wee Beastie were muted, faded, when set against the Machir Bay. This makes sense, naturally, because of Machir Bay's proof, so it's almost not fair to compare them, but the act of tasting one Islay next to the other was also the beginning of me moving beyond such simplistic thoughts as “That’s an Islay. Definitely a cask strength Islay.” For example, the Beastie has less of a fruitiness and more of a butterscotch/Werther's Original aroma, which flows to the palate. This allows me to pinpoint that what I like about the Kilchoman is actually not the qualities I usually associate with Islay but the fruitiness. The finish of the Kilchoman is also spicy in a way the Beastie isn’t, and this past weekend, I also tasted the Kilchoman against the Ardbeg 10, which is more refined than Beastie, being older, and the 10 doesn’t have that sweetness nor do either the 10 or the Beastie have the spiciness on the back end that the Machir Bay does. Honestly, I’m not going to knock either of the Ardbegs because Wee Beastie is good enough for the $43 price tag you can get it for in my region (and this month it was on sale for $37) and Ardbeg 10 is a classic, but the Machir Bay is a cask strength, so it’s difficult to tell how the flavor would compare if the proof was lowered to be equivalent to those (like I've said, Kilchoman isn't readily available in my region so I can't get the regular version of Machir Bay unless I special order it). The more proper comparison would likely be if I could taste the Machir Bay next to Uigeadail, which I had last fall and which may be one of my favorite whiskies I’ve ever tasted, but at the moment running out to buy Uigeadail isn’t in the budget (I’m actually saving my splurge bottle to be the Laphroaig 2021 Cairdeas Pedro Ximenez Cask that’s slowly arriving in my state but hasn’t hit any of the local stores yet, but if I still have the Machir Bay Cask Strength when I get it, that might be an interesting comparison too). But I’m belaboring the point of simply stating that this is a damn fine whisky. Because it was a gift, I’m going with the list price here (I don’t actually know how much it cost my friend). If you can find one of these for $75, pick it up. And if you have a friend who buys a bottle for you? Well, you’ve got a friend for life. And given the friend who picked this up for me has been my friend since we were roommates back in a study abroad program in Rome in ’99, I had no doubt of that anyway. Good whisky is something to share, even if you can only do it over FaceTime, and every time I pour a glass of this, I think of him. I raise it and give him a toast before my first sip. It’s the least I can do.