Kilchoman is, by a large margin, the newest distillery on Islay. While you might ask "Hey, what about Bruichladdich?" (like I did), Bruichladdich was actually founded in 1881 and active for years and years, and only closed for a small window in the late 1990s.
Kilchoman, however, was freshly founded, built from the ground up, in 2005. And apparently the "C" is silent (hence the giant "H" on the package?). As their website notes, it's a very small distillery, and built on a farm (hence the "Islay's Farm Distillery" on the box and bottle), which means that they grow their own barley. Talk about quality control.
Machir Bay (this is the 2013 bottling), named for the body of water that fronts the Kilchoman farm, is a four and five year old, ex-bourbon cask, non-chill filtered, uncolored, heavily peated Islay whisky, finished in sherry casks. At 50 ppm (phenol parts per million, the standard peat measurement in Scotch, as noted elsewhere on this blog), this is one of the smokier whiskies I've featured here on the blog - on full par with the Ardbegs and Laphroaigs and Lagavulins.
And it's completely delicious. The moment I picked the scent off the cork of the newly opened bottle I knew I had picked a winner. Blue ribbons are flying from my taste buds. I will shortly be saving my dollars to purchase their other offerings, especially the extra smoky Loch Gorm, because Machir Bay is top quality. In fact, it's kind of amazing that they made such a rich, savory, flavorful whisky in just five recent years.
Nose: This immediately reminds me of the best parts of two whiskies - it's wonderfully nutty like Caol Ila, with tons of big vanilla like The Glenlivet Nadurra - but with chocolate also added. Rocky road ice cream.
But on top of that, smoked meat with honey glaze... very savory in that BBQ way I like so much. Absolutely perfect blend of sugar and salt. Of course, there is Titanic-sized peat and smoke rumbling alongside the other flavors like a muscle car motor. This is a dram I can really just smell and smell.
Mouthfeel: Thick with smoke and rather tarry.
Palate: Wow, OK. This is very rich, doubly so for the youth - which is absolutely not apparent anywhere. This tastes equally old to me as the Laphroaig 18 Year I just had a few days ago, or the Lagavulin 16 Year. To be less than a third their age and be this complicated is astounding to me.
It's hard to even describe the many flavors that all come together here. First, the nose flavors come through: peanut butter ... vanilla ... milk chocolate ... salt. Then there is a nice, warm oak that inherits and enhances the pure vanilla.
Gentle dark fruits emerge, but no bitter cherries or cranberries - all rich plums and grapes. Light, ethereal woodland flavors, reminiscent of Edradour 10 Year, like wet leaves and bark and moss. Not too many maritime flavors, interestingly.
The smoke is present at every stage of the palate's evolution, and is rich and flavorful. It sort of inhabits and enriches the other flavors without taking over.
Finish: Interesting, I get mostly tobacco and leather on the finish. Not the usual oaken slats and bourbon/vanilla dryness. More leather than tobacco, perhaps, but very clear tobacco leaf, like shopping for pipe tobacco and lifting the lids of one of those giant glass containers full of rich wet Turkish shag.
Verdict: Very Highly Recommended. This is a very surprising find. I have heard about Kilchoman for a while as "the other Islay distillery" but with this bottle they vault themselves into the pantheon of the Holy Islay Trinity - Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Lagavulin. I consider myself very lucky to be around for the ongoing journey of this distillery - I can't wait for a couple more years when they have a Ten Year expression available! Boy do I hope I'm very rich by then. This is a top notch Islay whisky. Go and get it (and no, they are not paying me - I bought my bottle like the rest of the working world).
Link to Kilchoman's website: http://kilchomandistillery.com/our-single-malt-whisky
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