Reverend357
Kilchoman Red Wine Cask Matured (2017 Edition)
Single Malt — Islay, Scotland
Reviewed
July 20, 2019 (edited April 10, 2021)
Damnit I got lazy with tasting. Haven't had any whisky in months. I blame the unusual high temperatures for that. Sometimes you are just not in the mood for a drink.
Got time today, so I picked something at random. Mostly. Didn't want to get back into the game with a peat bomb or something north of 65%ABV, and this one is somewhere in between. Shame it is sold out everywhere, but yeah.
The nose has a pleasent peat note that you expect from Kilchoman. Enough to be noticed, but not so much that it burns out your brain just from sniffing it. That's what Laphroaig is for. There is also a salty air to it, a load of stewed prunes that you kinda expect with red wine casks, an interesting wiff of cinnamon and nougat chocolate. Almost like those plums that are drenched in rum and covered in dark bitter chocolate if you know them.
The taste is pleasently complex, and also kinda weird. In a good way. Reading off my notes, some of those flavors don't sound like they should work together, but for some reason they do. Peat, salt and dark fruits up front, so far, so good. Honey cereals take a bit of a back seat, but are still very clearly there. What is really damn weird are the spices and herbs that are in between the other tastes. Pepper ok, that's the peat usually...but oregano and basil is not something I expected. Gives it a nice fresh edge. Interesting.
The aftertaste is peppery honey with salt and touch of fruit. Doesn't last all that long.
All in all, Kilchoman gets it right. I usually prefer their offerings that got close to any sort of (foritfied) wine cask to their others. This is no exception.
And now, back to another couple months of tasting hibernation. Probably. Gonna be back with an andvent calendar at the latest tho. Some traditions are worth keeping alive. Cheers.
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@PBMichiganWolverine @Reverend357 Our auction has the opposite problem that they take anything! The guy marking up everything was moaning he spent hours marking up old partly leaked cheap samples when he called me :-). Think it's more the collectable mkt people are targeting vs drinking..nz is a more limited mkt though.
@Soba45 @Reverend357 i had a similar issue when I wanted to auction my stash—-they were only interested in selling the Macallans, Karuizawas, Hanyu, Yamazaki, Springbanks, and Ardbegs
@Soba45 well, that shows that big names ain't everything. Doesn't matter if "Ardbeg", "Macallan" or anything else is written on the bottle...important is what one gets out it. Enjoy it!
@PBMichiganWolverine In my dry January period I finally offloaded the bottle i had of this to auction. Amazingly no interest....people were more interested in fancy Macallans and Ardbegs...the head of the auction offered to take it for what i paid for it. By that stage however dry January was over and I had severe regrets about letting it go so they shipped it back for free, I cracked it open and sent two samples and have been working through the rest!
My favorite as well. Still have 1 bottle left :-)
Great review; sounds like a really unique one
I think this was my favorite Kilchoman , followed by their Sauternes finished