Taste Guide: New Oak / Virgin Oak

As is well known, casks in which other spirits, wines or beers have previously been matured are almost invariably used for the maturation of Scotch whisky. In recent years, some Scottish distilleries have experimented with new “virgin oak” casks and have released a few bottlings.

New oak casks, as these may only be called from now on, quickly impart very spicy notes to the maturing distillate, but tannins and resin notes quickly take over, so these casks are mostly used for finishing.

Anthony Wills also considers New Oak casks to be unsuitable for the maturation of the very light-bodied and fruity Kilchoman spirit, as the wood notes that quickly take over would “destroy” the Kilchoman whisky.

Always keen to experiment, he has nevertheless been trying out finishing in New Oak on a few casks since March 2023, interestingly not with whisky that had previously been aged in bourbon barrels but in STR casks (shaved, toasted & re-charred ex-red wine hogsheads). 

The New Oak casks were made by a french cooperage from ‘Carpathian oak’, i.e. European oak from the Carpathians. European oak is known to give the maturing distillate significantly spicier tones than American white oak.

When I had the opportunity to taste these casks, along with Anthony Wills and Robin Bignal, on 11 June 2024, after more than five years of maturation in fresh STR casks and a good year of maturation in New Oak, the whisky proved to be wonderfully spicy but already quite tannic. Anthony therefore decided to bottle the casks shortly afterwards.

The first of these casks was bottled on 8 July 2024 and released as a distillery exclusive for the Kilchoman distillery shop on 19 September 2024.

As a result of the warehouse tasting in June – I was very enthusiastic about the whisky and was able to convince the Kilchomania Tasting Panel of this with a cask sample – the second Kilchoman New Oak Finish was released as a Kilchomania.com release in December 2024. The whisky for our Kilchomania bottling had been finished in the new oak cask for another four months, which made it even spicier than the Distillery Shop Exclusive Release.

.

Kilchoman New Oak Finish Releases:

Release	Cask No.	Date Filled	Date Bottled	Finish
New Oak Single Cask Finish for The Distillery Shop	234/2018	27.03.2018	08.07.2024	Finish: over 1 year
New Oak Single Cask Finish for Kilchomania.com	237/2018	27.03.2018	23.10.2024	Finish: 1,5 years

.

.

.