Dear Kilchoman - Your participation in whisky festivals is damaging your reputation. That’s my conclusion after tasting your core range with a brand ambassador last night. I have tried your whiskies many times at festivals and always thought them fine, but nothing more. I realize now that they are much better than that if sampled outside the environment of a festival, where one’s frazzled palate tends to remember only the biggest flavor bombs. These are sophisticated whiskies best savored in isolation. What’s more, I do not recall anyone at these festivals ever explaining to me why you have so many variants, a factor I always found too confusing to warrant my time, but I now get that there is a logical progression from the 90% bourbon cask of Machir Bay through the 50/50 bourbon/sherry of Sanaig to the 100% Oloroso of Loch Gorm. With my appreciation thus recalibrated, I can now declare that I enjoyed all three of this core range. The Machir Bay, which I’m told is technically a five-year-old, has a nose of white pepper and vanilla. The body is crisp, malty and creamy with a hint of sweetness on the finish. It’s technically excellent and perfectly quaffable, if not quite exciting enough to warrant a place in my liquor cabinet. Date stamp on the bottle implied it was a 2019 batch, but I don’t think we need another entry in Distiller.