Tasting notes

nose

Savoury and meaty, with dried fig, date and ripe cherry, salted caramel, orange peel and a dusting of smoked paprika

palate

Smoke comes forward as pipe tobacco and barbecue ash, over dark chocolate, treacle, liquorice, sour cherry and black pepper, with grippy tannin

finish

Long and earthy; tobacco, dark cocoa and stewed dark fruit hold on, drying to oak tannin, wood spice and peat smoke

Mash bill

100% malted barley, peated. Kilchoman has not published the peating level for this release; the malt in its Machir Bay and Sanaig is peated to 50 parts per million. The distillery grows part of its own barley at Rockside Farm and malts some of it on its own floor and kiln.

Why it's craft

Maury Cask Matured is Kilchoman's first release aged for its entire maturation in casks that held Maury, a sweet fortified wine from Roussillon in southern France made mainly from Grenache noir. Kilchoman calls it not a finish: the spirit went into 19 Maury butts in 2021 and stayed there until bottling, and founder Anthony Wills describes these casks as challenging to manage. It comes from the farm distillery on Islay that filled its first cask in 2005 and has bottled everything on site since 2011.