Tasting notes

nose

Orange and lemon peel lead, with elderflower, honey and a breath of sea-air smoke

palate

Citrus and tropical fruit over barley sugar, toffee apple and salted caramel, with the peat smoke kept low

finish

Butterscotch and walnut give way to juicy citrus and stone fruit, which linger

Mash bill

100% malted barley, peated to 20 parts per million. All of the barley was grown on Rockside Farm, the farm on Islay's north-west coast where the distillery stands, and Kilchoman malted and peated it there as well. That is less than half the peating level of the 50 ppm malt in Machir Bay and Sanaig, a lighter, barley-forward style the distillery chose so the subtler side of its spirit comes through. The barley in this bottle was grown more than a decade before release, from a farm whose first crop for Kilchoman came in 2004.

Why it's craft

Rockside 11 is the first age statement in Kilchoman's core range, and the distillery calls it Islay's only single farm single malt: the barley is grown, malted and peated on Rockside Farm, then distilled, matured and bottled there. It follows fifteen 100% Islay releases made from the farm's own crop, which Kilchoman used to watch the spirit develop before giving it a permanent place in the range. Anthony and Kathy Wills built the distillery on the farm and filled its first cask in 2005, and every Kilchoman whisky has been bottled on site since 2011.