Last in our trilogy of familiar friends revisited was a whisky from Kilchoman… We sampled blind and truly struggled with this one. We should have guessed it… we really should have… but were flummoxed.

What did we find?

Kilchoman Machir Bay Cask Strength “Kilchoman 2017 Tour” 60%, Bottle 642/840

• Colour – A light gold
• Nose – Peat, sweet, bacon sizzling on a pan, super sweet, tangy citrus, marmite, very fruity, confectionary, marzipan, icing sugar, cinnamon candy then shifted character to reveal sacred ash, tamarind, jaggery then earthy, mineral, oily briney
• Palate – Surprisingly soft initially then strong, spiced cinnamon, ashy
• Finish – Aligned with the palate… cinnamon spice
• Water – Nicely balanced, very oily, chocolate

We couldn’t quite determine was the distillery… We ran through all the usual suspects and dismissed as didn’t quite match our recollections of the “signature” peat style. There was no doubt this was a most enjoyable dram.

And the reveal? Kilchoman?! Remarkable!

And no ordinary Kilchoman. It was picked up by our host in the US during the Kilchoman 2017 US Tour lead by Anthony Willis.

We all puzzled a bit as the whisky didn’t display what we would consider typical characteristics of Machir Bay or the cask strength Kicholman’s we’ve sampled in the past.

Bottom line, did we like it? Yes!

For one, he simply had to go back home to compare the recent impression with the standard Machir Bay. He later reported back that indeed – the sacred ash quality that we discovered does have hint in the original – just one that hadn’t “registered” quite as strongly before. Proving that our memories and ways of storing different drams into different categories can be a bit blurrier than we think!

Other Kilchoman sampled over the years…

• Bourbon Single Cask Trilogy 60.5% (LMDW)
• Coull Point 46%
• Machir Bay 46%, 2nd tasting
• Pedro Ximenez Single Cask Trilogy 58.4% (LMdW)
• Sanaig 46%
• Sherry Single Cask 60.6% (LMDW) & 2nd tasting

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