Tasting notes

nose

dried red fruit and toasted walnut, with grilled meat and a thick seam of peat smoke

palate

candied citrus and tropical fruit over salted caramel and dried plum, warmed by cinnamon and nutmeg, with smoke running through

finish

lasting; spice and toasted dark chocolate linger with liquorice, and the peat smoke stays restrained as dried fruit and oak fade

Mash bill

100% malted barley, peated to 50 parts per million. It is the same heavily peated malt that goes into the rest of Kilchoman's range, and the farm has malted more of its own barley on site since a new malt floor and kiln were completed in 2018. In Loch Gorm the smoke has to hold its own against ten years of full Oloroso maturation.

Why it's craft

Loch Gorm is the limited edition Kilchoman releases each year from whisky matured only in Oloroso sherry casks, and the 2026 edition carries a ten-year age statement. The casks come from one bodega, José y Miguel Martín, in a mix of butts and hogsheads. Kilchoman is the farm distillery Anthony and Kathy Wills built at Rockside Farm on Islay, where it grows and floor-malts barley, distils in copper pot stills and bottles every release on site.