Kilchoman Single Octave Cask 581/2010 for Islay Pipe Band

Cask No.: 581/2010

Cask type: Bourbon Octave (recte: Quarter) Cask

Date Filled: 7.10.2010

Date Bottled: 22.5.2014

Age: 3 yo

Strength: 60,5 % abv

Phenol level: 50 ppm

Number of bottles: 126

Bottle volume: 0,7 l

Market: UK

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In October 2010, Kilchoman filled a good 100 so-called Quarter Casks for the first time, which had been made for the distillery by a cooperage from bourbon cask staves.

Quarter casks, as the name suggests, are only about a quarter of the size of a 500-litre cask. The much larger surface area of the cask compared to its volume leads to more intensive contact with the wood of the maturing distillate. For this reason, some distilleries like to use quarter casks for finishing whisky.

On 26 September 2016, the “Original Cask Strength – Quarter Cask Matured Release” was released, for which 95 of the casks were bottled with an edition of 12,000 bottles.

Before and after that, a few Quarter Cask single cask bottlings were released, the first being this one for the Islay Pipe Band, sponsored by Kilchoman Distillery.

The bottling confusingly bears the cask designation Octave Cask, the terms Quarter Cask and Octave Cask are handled very inconsistently not only by Kilchoman. Normally, a cask with a capacity of about 50 litres is called an Octave. It remains to be said that all of the casks used by Kilchoman had a capacity of about 100 litres, regardless of whether Quarter Cask or Octave Cask is written on the label.

The whisky of the bottling for the Islay Pipe Band matured for three and a half years in Quarter Casks. This bottling was not only the first Kilchoman release of this cask type but also the one with the shortest maturation time.

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