Tag: Islay Whisky

Quarantine Bottle Kill #8: Kilchoman Sauternes Cask Matured (2016)

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It feels like the quarantine weeks are quickly going up in smoke. That’s probably because half of the home bar is Islay Whisky right now. Is that a forced transition? You bet it is.

I thoroughly enjoy heavily peated whisky. I often use Octomore as an example of just how good a Scotch Whisky can be and it doesn’t get any peatier, or more over proof, than that. Yet for all my love of the smoke finishing a bottle of heavily peated whisky rarely shows up on my list of achievements. That’s because drinking an Islay is a state of mind.

Drinking a good Islay transports me to rocky ocean beach in the evening. The campfire has just sputtered out and there’s a hint of rain in the air. But for now I can see the stars and wonder about my place in the universe.

Unlike its Highland brothers the island of Islay firmly embraces the one trait most people claim to hate about Scotch: the peat. Being aggressively peated, Islay Whiskies have an earned reputation of being an acquired taste. Sipping on a truly great peated whisky cause the taste buds to expand, the mind to slow, and an introspective nature to descend on the evening. At least it does for me.

Millions of drinkers across the globe have acquired this taste which have given Islay Scotch a cult like following. They are devoted but it does make it hard to break into the old boys club.

Enter Kilchoman. The first new distillery on Islay in 124 years this distillery, and its whiskies, came out of the barrel swinging. They began production in December of 2005 with their inaugural three year old whisky released in 2009. Since then they have racked up an impressive reputation and managed to take a seat at the clichy Islay table. They are also one of only a handful os Scotch distilleries using traditional floor malting on site as well as growing all of their barley on Islay at local farms.

One of the nice things about being the new kid in the old club is there is no tradition that you must adhere to. This gives Kilchoman a lot of room for experimentation. Like with their Sauterns Cask release. There have been a few different release but this was from their first offering in 2016.

Distilled in 2011 and bottled in 2016 this this 5 year old malt was completely aged in ex-Sauternes wine casks. Now, I clearly have a thing for malts that are finished in wine casks. So, how does a fully wine cask matured malt measure up?

NOSE: Buttery, with a hint of dried oranges and a misting of peat and sea salt
PALETE: Sweet apricot, caramel, honeysuckle, baking spices, and a salinity melding with a wonderfully balanced smoke
FINISH: Lingering, long clean, with a touch of sweet exhaling into a mouthful of smoke

This is a beautiful dram that is again an adventure and an experience. It transports while drinking. The experience also takes me back to when this bottle was purchased. 

It was 2016 on my first ever trip to Europe with my brand new partner who has stayed with me all these years. So much has happened since then but as the last drops slide from this bottle after four years I will cherish every experience this dram has given me and every moment between purchase and completion.

Whiskey Wednesday: Islay Barley

When you think of whisky and what gives it it’s flavor what springs to mind? Is it the mashbill, the barrel type, the aging location and length? Chances are good terrior didn’t spring to mind but the team at Bruichladdich would like to change that.

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Bruichladdich is a distillery that blends history and modernity. Founded in 1881 the distillery was, at the time, the most modern distillery on the island of Islay. It wafted in and out of popularity until the distillery was mothballed in 1994 for being “surplus to requirements.” It gained new life in 2000 when it was purchased by a group of private investors who dismantled and revamped the entire distillery once again making it one of the most modern distilleries on the island. They also brought with them a lot of experience in the wine world including a deep reverence for terrior, a reverence that has survived the distilleries sale to Remy Cointreau.. They also made two great decisions in their early days 1) hiring the legend Jim McEwan to be their master distiller and 2) deciding to actually grow barley on the island of Islay.

Scotch does not require the barley to be Scotch. To be Scotch that barley needs be distilled in Scotland not grown there. This is very reflective of the mentality that terrior doesn’t matter in whiskey. It’s not that distillers don’t care about the quality of the barley but rather that with so many other factors effecting the final product the terrior was way down the scale of importance, especially once the economics of scale set in.         download-1.jpg

The early days of whisky making were a local affair. A farmer had excess crops, they distilled them to preserve the grain, and sometimes managed to sell some of the spirit for extra profit. Many of these farm distilleries were successful enough to grow into commercial affairs but most did not survive the true industrialization of the spirit industry in the early 19th century. This was when improvements in technology and more interconnected trade allowed whisky making to become a large scale, commercial endeavor.

While there is some evidence that there was barley being grown on Islay before this time the advent of these large distilleries made in commercially unviable. These new distilleries were also all on the coast where they had their own piers or shallows where a flat-bottomed boat could dock. This made it more economic for these distilleries to import cheap grain from the mainland and export whisky.

As these distilleries continued to grow they also out grew the ability of the island to grow enough barley for them. There just simply isn’t enough land to supply all the barley these industrial distilleries need, so the farmers stopped growing the barley and turned to more economically advantageous pursuits.

Bruichladdich changed all of this in 2004 when they partnered with a local farmer named Raymond Stewart at Kentraw Farm on Richard Macaeire’s Foreland Estate on the Rhines. Raymond grew barley and Bruichladdich distilled it. The first release of the Bruichladdich Islay Barley was released in 2010. Each release is dated with the year of the barley’s harvest and labeled with which farm it called home.

Some of these releases have been stunners, the 2007 Rockside Farm is something I wish I’d squirreled away a few bottles of, but growing barley on the island of Islay is extremely finicky. The 2009 and 2010 releases of Islay Barley were blends of several farms. Still distinctly labeled but you can’t help but feel that the strong idea of terrior is running into the old problem of supply.

This blend of farms may be a temporary hiccup as the Islay Barley series has expanded. Bruichladdich divides its products into three core lines: Bruichladdich (unpeated whiskey), Port Charlotte (heavily peated whisky), and the Octomore (experimental, cask strength, super heavily peated whisky). The Port Charlotte is also utilizing a blend of farms but the Octomore is not. But then again the Octomore has always been a unique case with all of its barley coming from the farm of Octomore a mere 2 miles from the distillery.

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In the end, these are whiskies that are still evolving. Not just with different bottlings from year to year but also in terms of the process of making the whisky. And they are hit or miss. Barring the previously mentioned Rock Hill Farm the Bruichladdich Islay Barley releases have been interesting at least but the Port Charlotte’s have always fallen flat for me. I’m inclined to think that it’s because of the peat adding one more layer of obfuscation between the original barley and the finished whisky. The Octomore Islay barley however is a stunning beauty of a whisky with a layered elegance and subtle floral quality the belies its status as a cask strength monster and is one of the most heavily peated whiskies in the world.

Bruichladdich is the first Scottish distillery to put such a laser sharp focus on the terrior. They are experimenting and finding new boundaries inside of one of the most heavily defined spirits in the world and for that they should be applauded. Whether this experiment continues to grow and leave its own terrior on the whisky world or if it succumbs to the economics of industrial scale production has yet to be seen.