Kilkerran Cage Bottle Whisky Reviews!

Two Kilkerran rarities! Two different 14-year old distillery exclusive single cask "cage bottlings", one from an ex-bourbon cask and one from a rum cask, both from the slightly newer cage that is now housed in Springbank's own shop.

Cage bottles from Springbank's stables just don't seem to miss. As with all whiskies some are better (or much better) than others, but I've never come across one that has been anything less than great. These properly distillery exclusive bottlings changed quite a bit during the pandemic, but they're still mysterious and still little-known in the wider whisky world. Originally these cage bottles were one-off cask samples drawn from casks that the distillery staff earmarked as particularly special and/or different from the norm, so no two cage bottlings were the same and each was irreplaceable. During the pandemic however, a change in approach saw these switch to single cask bottlings where the entire cask is bottled as a cage bottling. The labels still contain the same basic and cryptic information, they're still titled "Duty Paid Sample", and the bottles still have the J&A Mitchell neck tag with the bottling date and the signature of the person who selected the cask. The easiest way to tell whether you have a pre- or post-change cage bottling is one basic change to the label - the original one-off cask sample labels were all hand-written, while the post-change single cask bottlings are digitally printed. The cage itself has also moved from out the back of the Cadenhead's shop in Campbeltown, to the Springbank distillery shop. While you could argue that these changes make cage bottles a little less exclusive and less unique, when it comes to the actual whisky it certainly doesn't make them any less delicious! 

At the same time the "living cask" vats of hand-filled bottlings shifted from Cadenhead's to the shop at Springbank, the labels were prettied up a bit and changed to "hand filled distillery exclusive". They're still exactly the same as the "living cask" bottlings though, where there's one vat for each of J&A Mitchell's single malt brands; Springbank, Hazelburn, Longrow, and Kilkerran, and they're constantly topped up with bottles / vessels of each brand at various ages and cask types. Still single malts, but a mix of ages and casks, meaning that they're never the same from one day to the next. These simple but clever changes have seen the demand for these "hand fills" skyrocket, and they're now far more popular than they ever were in their previous guise - to the point where they're constantly being flipped at auction rather than being passed over. 

Which is something that has always applied to their rarer and much more valuable siblings. Kilkerran is far less "flippable" than any of the Springbank stable, even less so than Hazelburn and Longrow which already fly under the radar of most "investors" and resellers. While both Springbank and Kilkerran are owned by the same company, J&A Mitchell, Kilkerran is produced at Glengyle Distillery, roughly 100m down the road from Springbank Distillery. The single malt produced at Glengyle Distillery is branded as Kilkerran, derived from the Gaelic name of the original settlement that would eventually become Campbeltown; Kilkerran roughly meaning "Church of St. Kiaran" in English. The brand name Glengyle was already owned by another company when J&A Mitchell opened Glengyle Distillery, so they had to come up with an alternative name for its single malt products. Glengyle Distillery originally ran from 1872 to 1925, and was founded by one of the brothers who opened Springbank Distillery in 1828. Crucially the current Glengyle wasn't an entirely new distillery named one that had closed down, it was actually rebuilt in the original distillery buildings, although those buildings had plenty of other purposes and occupants over the 79-years that passed between the distillery closing in 1925 and reopening in 2004. 

Having only made two trips to Scotland so far, and with the most recent being over seven years ago now, the second cage bottle that we're looking at here was sourced from the auctions. An Australian auction site no less, and this seems to be the only Kilkerran cage bottle that has ever appeared on that particular auction site. Personally I cannot comprehend selling something like this for profit, being a proper rarity, and presumably without ever trying the whisky itself, and presumably being a souvenir from a trip to one of Scotland's more remote whisky destinations - Campbeltown is more removed from the rest of Scotland than a glance at a map may lead you to believe! But I shouldn't complain about reselling in this particular case, since it's the reason that I was able to buy, open, enjoy, and share this Kilkerran cage bottle, without physically travelling to Scotland. 

On to the reviews! The first Kilkerran cage bottle we're looking at was a sample from a friend who organised a Kilkerran virtual tasting, and is a 14-year old cage bottle from a single first-fill ex-bourbon cask, distilled in May 2009 and bottled in March 2024 at 56.9% ABV. The second is a 14-year old cage bottle from a refill rum cask, distilled in April 2010 and bottled in September 2024 at 59.3% ABV. A rum cask Kilkerran is quite rare on its own, let alone a cage bottle from a refill rum cask, so I couldn't resist nabbing it. Both are of course non-chill filtered and natural colour. Let's see how they go! 

Kilkerran 14 Year Old Cage Bottle Ex-Bourbon, 56.9%. Campbeltown, Scotland.

Distilled May 2009, matured in single first-fill ex-bourbon cask, bottled March 2024. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Gold. 

Nose: Sweet, fruity, salty, and a bit nippy & aggressive. Aged cheddar cheese, the hard & crumbly sort with the salt crystals forming. Sweetened grapefruit peels, sea salt, and juicy honeyed malted barley. Touch of candle wax & soft peat smoke, thickened vanilla cream, salted lime. Touches of stone fruit around the edges. 

Texture: Medium weight. Oily, creamy, malty. Significant alcohol heat. 

Taste: More aged cheddar cheese, creamy vanilla, candle wax, and sea salt. Grapefruit peel, soft peat smoke, olive oil, and slight touches of greasy old rags & mechanic's workshop floor. Those notes do taste better than they sound, believe me! 

Finish: Long length. Still a little hot & aggressive unfortunately, but I wouldn't say rough and certainly not unpleasant. Grapefruit peels, candle wax, and soft peat smoke. Slightly floral around the edges. Crunchy malted barley & sea salt to finish. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5. 

Notes: Very enjoyable, just "essence of Kilkerran" as you'd expect, and there's nothing wrong with that. That spirit-y heat is a little disappointing and distracting though, but there is enough flavour behind to pull it all together. Those cheesy, oily, salty, and grapefruit notes are very Kilkerran, and they're delicious. This isn't the full parmesan cheese / butyric acid style of lactic note that can tip over into sour milk territory, it's more a crumbly, mature cheddar with a bit of saltiness to it. Kilkerran may not get as dirty, funky, or grungy as Springbank, but it still has some funk in its step!

Kilkerran 14 Year Old Cage Bottle Ex-Rum, 59.3%. Campbeltown, Scotland.

Distilled April 2010, matured in single refill ex-rum cask, bottled September 2024. Non-chill filtered, natural colour.

Colour: Gold. 

Nose: Fruity, sweet, and funky! Some petrol & browning bananas from the rum cask, plus brown sugar and wooden cigar box. Touches of old leather & furniture polish. Aged cheddar, grapefruit, and sea salt poking through. Caramel cheesecake, and damp spent barley (draff). 

Texture: Medium weight. Oily, rich, funky, malty. Slight touch of heat. 

Taste: Rum funk meets Campbeltown oiliness & saltiness. Sweet & salty. Brown sugar, pecan pie, mushed bananas on burnt toast, thick caramel sauce. Malty, sweet pastry, and brown butter notes. 

Finish: Long length. The rum cask carries through with petrol, brown sugar, and thick caramel. Pecan pie, brown butter, grapefruit peel, and cheddar cheese, with a pinch of sea salt. 

Score: 4 out of 5. Close to a 4.5. 

Notes: Delicious! Great balance of rum cask influence without it overwhelming the spirit - that's because it's a refill cask of course, but there's still plenty of impact - whatever that first whisky filling was, it must've copped a hiding from the rum! This is almost a dessert dram, but not in an overly sweet or syrupy way, there's just loads of richness with caramel, pastry, and dessert tart sort of notes that make this a very moreish whisky. I'm guessing this refill rum cask originally held Jamaican rum, or at least something pretty estery from the Caribbean, and it's worked very well with the lighter funk of the Kilkerran spirit. Great dram, and a great example of what the distillery cage bottles have to offer - if you're lucky!

Cheers!