New on the German market: 100% Islay Unpeated 12 yo Sherry Butt 560/2012
After the German Kilchoman importer Hanseatische Weinhandelsgesellschaft Bremen had already released the series of Kilchoman single cask bottlings ‘The Sister Casks – A Maturation Journey’ at the beginning of the year to mark the company’s 50th anniversary, it is now concluding the anniversary year with another Kilchoman single cask bottling.
This time it is one of the rather rare bottlings of ‘unpeated’ Kilchoman. The whisky, made from malted barley from the Rockside farm and matured in an Oloroso sherry butt, spent 12 years in the cask.
Kilchoman has only worked with unpeated malt from the farm’s own barley very sporadically over the years; a somewhat larger batch (75 casks) was produced in the late summer of 2012 when the kiln needed to peat the malt broke down. The present cask also comes from this batch.
Bottlings of unpeated Kilchoman whisky are therefore very rare, with the first two released in early 2020 and only a dozen or so other bottlings matured in both Oloroso sherry casks and bourbon barrels have been released to date. (An overview can be found here.)
Despite the use of unpeated malt, all of the bottlings released to date have a slight hint of peat smoke. This is due to the fact that the “low wines and feints receiver” from which the spirit still is filled was not elaborately emptied in between the alternating distillation runs with peated malt, which is why Kilchoman usually uses the term “unpeated” in inverted commas. In the USA, some of these bottlings were labelled as “slightly peated”, with two US releases not even stating the fact that they were produced from unpeated malt so as not to confuse customers with the peat smoke flavour of an “unpeated” whisky.
The German Kilchoman importer is now going the opposite way and emphasises the UNPEATED in its advertising. If you are looking for a truly unique selling point, it should be mentioned that this release is by far the oldest bottling of an ‘unpeated’ Kilchoman from a sherry cask and the only one to mature in Oloroso sherry butts. The previous ‘unpeated’ sherry Kilchomans were all 7-9 years old and came from Oloroso sherry hogsheads.
The MSRP is a whopping €160, the bottles can already be pre-ordered from the first German online whisky retailers.
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“We only filled a handful of casks with unpeated 100% Islay spirit over the past 15 years and it was always going to be fascinating how they developed differently from the usually peated malt. Although faint notes of peated spirit from the previous sprit runs can be found in the whisky, it is overridden on the palate with strong spice, bold fruits and coastal flavours” Anthony Wills, Kilchoman Founder and Master Distiller.
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Cask No.: 560/2012
Cask type: Oloroso Sherry Butt
Date Filled: 30.8.2012
Date Bottled: 28.10.2024
Age: 12 yo
Strength: 54,6 % abv
Level of Phenols in malted barley: 0 ppm
Number of bottles: 662
Bottle volume: 0,7 l
Market: Germany
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