Kilkerran 20yo
2024 Open Day Release | 49.2% ABV
Score: 9/10
Exceptional.
TL;DR
Worth fighting for
Defiant
Glengyle distillery exists out of pure belligerence. The product of confrontation, of protest, of defiance.
Its neighbour, Springbank distillery, was founded in 1828 and, under the overwatch of Archibald Mitchell, it was eventually run by his sons John and William. They worked together to run Springbank until the inevitable brother-thing happened; they had a fight.
This wasn’t a hug-and-make-up kind of fight either. This one wouldn’t be reconciled over a pint and an apology. This was a big fight. Big enough for William to up and leave the distillery that had been running for, at the time, 44 years. He went on to build a distillery of his own; Glengyle. Right on the doorstep of Springbank.
Oh to be a fly on the wall back then, to see what such a fight could’ve been about. Usually these fights are about money, but when it’s brothers fighting, it could literally be about anything: women, horses, borrowed shirts or budgies. Believe me, I know.
Anyway, in 1872, Glengyle distillery was founded by William Mitchell and lasted until the dark days of the early 20th century which swept away so much of the distilling in Campbeltown. After a buyout by the town’s own West Highland Malt Distillers Ltd in 1919, it was eventually closed in 1925.
Despite an earnest purchase in 1941 by blending company Bloch Brothers, the war in Europe made sure no rebuild or reopening took place. The remaining stock was presumably used in blends around this time. Eventually, the buildings were used for purposes other than whisky. The warehouses became a car garage and the distillery itself an agricultural supplies centre, gun club and rifle range. In time, these businesses would also close.
More attempts were made to revive things in the post-war boom of the 1950s, with planning permission granted to Campbell Henderson & Co. after they acquired the site from Bloch. Yet these plans also faltered. It was going to need something more potent than planning permission to get things going. It needed impetus. How about another fight?
Many things are anecdotal in whisky and the tale that follows is one of them, but time and again I have heard it told and retold, with conviction. It is the tale of Glengyle existing today out of pure defiance.
In the 1990s, work was underway to officiate the notion of protected locality in scotch whisky. ‘Regions’ such as Speyside, Islay and the Lowlands were well understood but, along with the Highlands, they needed to be defined as part of the Scotch Whisky Regulations. At this point, we hear word was conveyed to the whisky producers of Campbeltown that their ‘region’ would not receive protected locality status, since there were only two operational distilleries at the time.
This is something that, to me, seems suspiciously arbitrary; but apparently a protected locality needed at least three operational distilleries. I’m sure it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that United Distillers/Diageo didn’t have any distilleries in Campbeltown.
The Lowland region was used as an example, with three distilleries producing whisky. Again, I’m triggered. Bladnoch would have been part-time at best during the 1990s and it took Raymond Armstrong some time to get the mothballed site operational once more, opening fully in 2000. That would’ve meant the Lowlands had only Auchentoshan and Glenkinchie running at the time. Perhaps the suggestion was the two Campbeltown distilleries would’ve simply been woven into the protected locality of the Lowlands?
In any case, the story goes that the late Hedley Wright took umbrage at this nonsensical notion (who wouldn’t?) and set about plans for Campbeltown’s third distillery. It would be the distillery once owned by his great, great uncle William Mitchell; Glengyle.
He acquired the site and buildings which, due to their sporadic use over the years, were in better shape than most of the town’s lost distilleries. Still, it took four years from 2000 until 2004 to complete the project, with a decent amount of that time dedicated to shovelling out tons of shin-deep pigeon guano.
Eventually, in 2009 Glengyle released its first ever malt whisky. Fittingly, it was the same year the protected locality of ‘Campbeltown’ was ratified in the Scotch Whisky Regulations.
Interestingly, that first ‘Work-in-Progress’ release wasn’t named after the distillery. Why? Well, it seems we have room for yet one more anecdotal disagreement.
While preparing to release their ‘Glengyle’ spirit, Mitchell’s hit a snag. It would be uncovered that the name had previously been used by Bloch Brothers as a scotch brand. It was already registered as such and, at the time, it was under the ownership of Glen Catrine; then owners of Loch Lomond and Glen Scotia, who had released it as an export blended malt until the 1990s.
I’m not exactly sure how this played out, but the story goes that the money demanded for use of the brand was too much to pay so a, habitually by this point, defiant Mitchell’s Glengyle Ltd went with Kilkerran instead, after the Gaelic name for Campbeltown; Ceann Loch Chille Chiarain.
What’s strange here is that, in my understanding, if the name Glengyle (or indeed Glen Gyle) had previously been used for spirit other than what was produced at the actual distillery, it would not be permitted to be used thereafter on a single malt from Glengyle anyway(?)
Much in the same way we have an Edradour II instead of a Ballechin distillery in the Southern Highlands. Since the Ballechin spirit had already been produced at Edradour, it couldn’t be made at the new distillery and called Ballechin. So, despondent and unable to use the name for the new distillery, Edradour’s owners just named it Edradour II. As in, two fingers. I’ll welcome corrections in the comments.
Of course, as always, I could be getting my wires crossed here, but I believe this to be the case and I know for sure that Mitchell’s certainly intended to use the Glengyle name for their branding. I had an old bottle of 10 year old Longrow, and inside the carton was a promotional leaflet promoting Glengyle Single Malt back in the early 2000s. No mention of Kilkerran at all.
Regardless, purely based on the joy I find in my glass today, they could’ve called it whatever they liked, we’d all have been happy regardless.
The score is the spoiler, of course, but this is magical whisky.
Review
Kilkerran 20yo, Open Day 2024 Release, 10 years ex-rum cask, 10 years ex-bourbon hogshead, 432 35cl bottles only, 49.2% ABV
£140 at the distillery, on the day
Not everyone loved these 35cl bottles. Something that Springbank rolled out for their festival releases in 2023 has been extended onto not only this Kilkerran Open Day release, but also the warehouse tasting releases they offered too. I’m okay with the bottles being small. I really do believe they’ll be more likely to be opened and shared, with far less of them held as posterity prisoners. Maybe I’m being naive, but folk were opening and sharing these on the day. It was brilliant.
I do have a gripe, and it’s not a small one. This 35cl bottle was £140. I choked. So excited at a 20 year old Kilkerran, I hadn’t asked the price before buying it. I then overheard chatter that this was some of the last remaining stock of 2004 liquid. Scarce indeed.
Anyway, I must’ve got over my gripe pretty quickly, as I bought another almost immediately afterwards. I’m weak, and a sucker for this distillery, but I wouldn’t have bothered if there was any kind of a fight; in my own show of defiance I chose to queue for nothing.
In the end, I didn’t need to bother. I was able to buy everything I wanted, without any queues. There was stock left late in the day, and I guess that in itself is reason to be grateful for smaller bottles. A single cask yielded a mere 432. Still, that’s £280 for a 70cl volume, pushing it to the same price point as the latest Longrow 21yo. Of which mature stock is also very scarce these days.
Let’s dwell on the two-decade maturation. It was originally a rum cask, matured for ten years, before being recasked into a refill bourbon hogshead for another ten years. Hallelujah. Maturation for development’s sake; letting flavour build, being patient. A number of Mitchell’s bottles and samples floating around had this ‘de-maturation’ treatment, and I kinda love it. It just makes sense. This is scotch, and one thing that scotch does brilliantly is build complexity when given time in a cask that doesn’t suffocate.
The ABV is a natural 49.2% and not reduced, so the natural concentration of flavour over those 20 years is here, without dilution.
Score: 9/10
Exceptional.
TL;DR
Worth fighting for
Nose
My first glass disappeared without any nosing or tasting notes. It was just lovely. Second glass poured and I’m dialled in.
There’s a rich manuka honey and beeswax, gingerbread and Jaffa cakes, olive oil, something green, with lemon curd and wood polish.
Palate
Gratitude. A creamy and thick arrival brings fruit pastilles, dry ginger and white pepper, milk chocolate, treacle and marmalade, a little farmyard.
Water brightens the fruit; apricot and mango, while highlighting that green note; a little herbal. A medium-long, slightly drying and acidic finish. Its density is best enjoyed neat.
The empty glass gives more of that green note, it’s like dried, mixed herbs. Or maybe marijuana.
The Dregs
Glengyle is markedly different from Springbank. Despite both producing lightly peated, heavily peated and triple-distilled malt, in many ways they look and feel as if they were owned and run by different organisations. Where Springbank must be one of the single most confusing places to direct your head around where-lies-what, Glengyle is very logical and linear; you can stand at the mash tun and see all the way past the fermentation washbacks and onto the stills. It doesn’t use worm tub condensers and occasionally, although rarely, will use external maltsters to bolster capacity. At times, there’s a sense that it’s ‘Springbank-lite’.
I think this unfair feeling will fade in time. Somehow, despite all the challenges, fights and fall-outs, it is defiantly back doing what it was built to do, and it’s doing it brilliantly.
It has found its own character and vibe and it’s winning fans by the sip. The spirit is every bit as interesting as its neighbour and often as dense of flavour. That ‘funk’ that betrays a glass of Springbank is there too, albeit ever so slightly more muted; more integrated.
I believe this 20yo, in my experience, is the best they’ve released, even nudging out the incredible 19yo Warehouse Tasting , refill bourbon release - which already had me shouting gratitude at the grey Campbeltown skies earlier on the same day. It’s actually, to this self-declared fan boy, like a slightly more elegant take on Springbank.
And please don’t consider it to be a one-trick pony either. Like its sister, it has many skills. The heavily peated is like creamy, buttery, smoky popcorn and last year’s Triple Distilled Open Day 17yo release was a thing of pure beauty, leaving those who tried it in slack-jawed awe at how good it was. A style that will surely be made more of a feature of as the distillery expands its production in future.
Until it does so, stocks will remain limited and I see the strategy of 35cl bottles being a part of the celebrations for a while yet. It’s a little more egalitarian and hopefully, these days, cause for a little less confrontation.
I will admit though, one of the worst things about these little bottles is how quickly they disappear, so I won’t be sharing this one. It’s all mine.
Fight me.
Score: 9/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. WMc
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