Taste Guide: New Oak / Virgin Oak

The first New Oak Finish Single Cask Release. Picture by Rachel MacKinnon

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.

Virgin oak casks quickly impart very spicy notes to the maturing distillate, but tannins and resin notes quickly take over, so virgin oak casks are mostly used for finishing.

Anthony Wills also considers virgin 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 Virgin 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 Virgin Oak casks were made 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.

Cask sample from 11 June 2024 of a 2018 Kilchoman, which was decanted from a STR into a virgin oak cask in March 2023. The whisky has a rich brown colour, with spicy wood notes dominating the nose and taste.

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 Virgin 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. Kilchoman decided to use the term New Oak for this bottling, as they did for the following bottlings, and not the more common name Virgin Oak.

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 autumn 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.

Tasting on 11 June 2024: Hans-Peter Neumann, Anthony Wills, Robin Bignal (left to right)

.

Kilchoman New Oak Finish Releases:

ReleaseCask No.Date FilledDate BottledFinish
New Oak Single Cask Finish for The Distillery Shop234/201827.03.201808.07.2024Finish: over 1 year
New Oak Single Cask Finish for Kilchomania.com237/201827.03.201823.10.2024Finish: 1,5 years

.

.

.