Kilkerran 8 Year Old Cask Strength (2019) Whisky Review!

One that Australia missed out on completely - which is a massive shame. Thankfully our friends over the water in NZ came to the rescue for a lucky few!

I'm already a fan of Campbeltown's Kilkerran 8-year old Cask Strength, so when this bottling popped up almost a year ago (in Europe) I knew that I had to have one. Why this specific bottling? Because it's the first Kilkerran '8CS' that was not matured in first-fill ex-bourbon casks - specifically, this one has been fully-matured in re-charred Oloroso sherry casks. This bottling got a huge amount of attention in Britain and Europe, and it slowly spread to some other countries, but sadly Australia is currently between importers & distributors for Kilkerran at the moment - as in, there isn't one - after issues with the previous importer. While there is still some leftover stock of the Kilkerran 12-year old core range bottling around, even it is few and far between, and we seem to have completely missed out on not only this bottling that I'm reviewing today, but also the first two batches of the distillery's Heavily Peated expression which have already come & gone in most other countries. Those are, or rather were, 3-4 year old whiskies, bottled at cask strength, that were distilled from barley peated to something like 80 ppm, which is a significantly higher peating level than basically everything except Octomore, and far exceeds that of Longrow, Kilkerran's heavily-peated Campbeltown-cousin. They were very reasonably priced overseas, and by all reports were also very tasty. The only real options for Australian Campbeltown fans who wanted to get their hands on any of these bottlings were either direct import from Europe, plus the huge customs, freight & local courier charges that come with it, or for a lucky few a fantastic little store located across the Tasman in New Zealand which tends to offer outstanding pricing - far better than we get in Australia. Let's hope we get a new Australian importer for Kilkerran soon, because they're really ramping up in terms of international praise & awareness, and they seem to really be definitely hitting their stride - someone pick up the torch please, we need more Kilkerran in Australia ASAP!

For those who aren't aware, Kilkerran single malt is produced by Glengyle Distillery, located in Campbeltown on the Kintyre Peninsula in south-western Scotland. The Kilkerran name came about partly out of necessity, since Glengyle is already the name of a blended Scotch whisky from another region. But it's also derived from the Gaelic name for the original settlement that later became Campeltown, which roughly translates to "Church of St. Kiaran (Kerran)". The distillery is owned by J&A Mitchell, the privately-owned parent company behind the legendary Springbank Distillery and also Cadenhead's, Scotland's oldest independent bottler. The Glengyle name refers to a Campbeltown distillery that operated from 1872 to 1925, but rather than just being named after a local dead distillery as a tribute like many other whisky brands (Hazelburn, Longrow, Ballechin & Port Charlotte for example), there are more connections here, and they run much deeper. For starters, the 'new' distillery is actually housed in the original buildings on the original site of Glengyle Distillery, which is found a few hundred metres down the road from Springbank. So it's actually a resurrected old distillery rather than a new distillery - they actually refer to themselves as 'Campbeltown's newest old distillery'! Now home to just three working examples, in the Victorian era this small town was once home to 34 distilleries, and Campbeltown is now dotted with both the decaying corpses of many abandoned distilleries, and also with some that were re-purposed and only show subtle hints of what they once were. Most of these distilleries met their end somewhere in the first third of the 20th century due to a number of factors, including a race to pump out stock which saw the market become flooded and in some cases quality then became compromised, which damaged the region's reputation. There was also prohibition in the US, and shifting demand from the Scottish blenders who were keeping up with the changing tastes of their markets. One more connection between J&A Mitchell and Glengyle is actually a family connection, since Mr. Hedley Wright, chairman of J&A Mitchell, is actually the great-nephew of the original founder of the distillery, William Mitchell. William founded and ran Springbank Distillery together with brother John until the two had a falling out, which saw William found his own distillery, Glengyle.

There had been other attempts to resurrect the distillery in the past, but none had succeeded until J&A Mitchell came along in 2000, and the distillery re-opened in 2004, almost 80 years after Glengyle had last produced spirit. This resurrection saw Glengyle become Campbeltown's third active distillery, joining Glen Scotia and of course Springbank, which helped this town of 9,000 residents maintain its status with the Scotch Whisky Association as a designated whisky region of its own. After the original distillery buildings were extensively restored, the hunt was on for equipment - Glengyle's mill was sourced from Craigellachie, while the stills and some other equipment came from the deceased Ben Wyvis Distillery. Those two stills were customised to better suit Glengyle's desired spirit style, which saw the still shape and lyne arm-angle changed. The barley used at Glengyle is floor-malted down the road at Springbank on their two malting floors, and for all but the Heavily Peated expressions mentioned above that barley is lightly peated to around 15 ppm, which is the same level as Springbank's namesake whisky. Once received at Glengyle the malted barley is milled and mashed on-site, and fermented in their four wooden washbacks for 72-110 hours, a long fermentation period that is again similar to that used at Springbank - they also share the same water source, the nearby Crosshill Loch. That's where things deviate, as Glengyle's Kilkerran whisky is double-distilled and uses shell & tube condensers rather than the intricate distillation process & complicated setup that is used at its sister distillery, so don't think that this is simply Springbank by another name - this is a distinctly different single malt. Maturation happens in both modern racked warehouses and traditional dunnage warehouses, and bottling happens at Springbank's bottling hall. This is a very tiny distillery by the way, with an annual production capacity of well under 200,000-litres of spirit, and actual production is often significantly less, so there really isn't much of it to go around.

Glengyle released a number of "Work in Progress" bottlings while waiting for their core range Kilkerran 12-year old to mature, which debuted back in 2016. As you'd expect from this company, none of their single malts are chill filtered or artificially coloured, and all are bottled at a minimum of 46% ABV. As far as the 8-year old Cask Strength expression, there have been four batches released to date, each consisting of at least 9,000 bottles, the first of which debuted in early 2017. But as with the brilliant Springbank 12-year old Cask Strength, they aren't printed with any batch numbers, so they can only be identified by the different alcoholic strengths. As mentioned above the first three batches were matured in first-fill ex-bourbon casks, while this fourth batch, the 2019-bottling of Kilkerran 8-year old Cask Strength was fully-matured in re-charred Oloroso sherry casks - which I would take to mean first-fill casks that have been re-charred before filling. This was also a larger release, with 15,000 bottles released compared to the 9,000 units of the previous three batches. So, a lightly peated, double distilled Kilkerran matured in re-charred Oloroso sherry casks, and bottled at a cask strength of 57.1%. Something tells me this is going to be quite the tasty dram! My sample for this review came from a very generous NZ-based reader named Julie, who was lucky enough to nab one from the store that I hinted at above. Shall we?

Kilkerran 8 Year Old Cask Strength, 2019 release, 57.1%. Campbeltown, Scotland.
Double-distilled from lightly peated barley floor-malted at Springbank, fully matured in re-charred (presumably first-fill) Oloroso sherry casks. Non-chill filtered, natural colour. 15,000 bottles.

Colour: Dark amber. Not as red/rusty as it looks in the bottle.

Nose: Soft & surprisingly subtle to begin with, then unfolds with dry meaty (rancio - game-y / meaty / funky) sherry, some cloves, black cherries and rum & raisin dark chocolate. A little ginger, wood-smoked cheddar cheese and a little gravy powder. Dried berries and hints of leather & earthy peat with more time.

Texture: Medium-heavy weight, rich & very oily, dry & fruity. No heat at all.

Taste: Soft syrupy entry, but very oily, then it builds to a big dry, meaty & rancio sherry influence with dried fruit, clove, dried orange, and that rum & raisin dark chocolate again. Some cherry liqueur - but without the sweetness, so maybe cherry schnapps? Some liquorice and leather in the background.

Finish: Long length. Getting more meaty & savoury again with clean machine oils, more rancio sherry notes and dry spices, salt showing up now too. Also some rubber, and more dark chocolate, some orange oil. Getting earthy and lightly waxy towards the end.

Score: 4 out of 5.

Notes: Delicious! The nose on this 8-year old Cask Strength is surprisingly soft & inviting, especially compared to the palate and finish that follow it. The finish in particular doesn't go anywhere in a hurry! There are shades of Longrow 14-year old Sherry Cask and Benromach Peat Smoke Sherry Cask here, but the Kilkerran is not as dirty or as funky - and it's not downright sulphur-y like the Longrow. It's also quite different - very oily, slightly cheesy (lactic) and not as dark in flavour - but that's no bad thing! It still has the oily, earthy, lightly briny and lactic character than I find in Kilkerran, but this distillery has never been as funky as Springbank - but is more so than Glen Scotia. So it's something of a middle child in the Campbeltown distillery family -  again, no bad thing!

This is certainly a great dram, but in my opinion if you're a Campbeltown fan that is wanting to try a Kilkerran for the first time you'd be better off going for the bourbon cask-matured versions of the 8-year old Cask Strength. They let more distillery character show through, and they're a more unique offering that is not seen from those neighbouring distilleries. But if you've already been there & done that, then this sherry-matured version is going to scratch your itch - it's just a shame that Australia has seemingly missed out on this one. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that we get a new importer soon!

Cheers!