Kilkerran 16yo 2022
Official Bottling August 2022 | 46% ABV
Score: 8/10
Something special.
TL;DR
It’s out there, and it’s worth the effort
Just how Big Should our Cabinets be?
Mine are plenty big. At least for now. But there are so many whisky bottles gathering on them that, over the years, the once solid and stable floor now creaks and strains.
I bought a couple of shelving units at first, then a couple more, then a couple more. I filled them all. Now I’m at the stage where I’m being shouted at. Not by my significant other, I should say, but by my floor. It’s literally groaning at me. It didn’t previously groan; it was a solid floor and not one given to creaks and squeaks. Yet in recent times, with all that weight across one back wall, it’s now slightly protesting at the sheer weight of the bottle-fest I’m asking it to bear. I’ve resolved to empty some bottles before any are replaced, but I know I’m just warming the air with wasted breath. I’ll buy more, I know it; not from a sense of FOMO, but from pure curiosity. And replacing almost-empty with full only adds to my woes. First world problems, of course.
I’ll buy my favourites because I like to have them around and I want to see how their batches change over time. I’ll buy new things because I want to try as much as I can, and I’ll buy from recommendations because, well, it’s hard not to. I know too many whisky folk who shout when their eyes pop out and fall into a glass of something new and spectacular. If I allow my empty, echoing wallet to harmonise with my creaking floor, I hear a cacophony of ‘You’re buying far too much’. For one man’s consumption, that’s certainly true. And yet. On I trudge.
I’ll try a feeble attempt at justification here by proffering that it’s a selection of constantly rotating bottles; I’m not hoarding. I don’t have favourites stacked three and four deep. I have a drinker’s stash. A sharer’s stash. Yet, I’m aware it’s extreme, because when non-whisky people clap eyes on it they gasp and fall over.
So I wonder how many more out there are like me, experiencing vocal protests from their bank accounts and their weight-laden floors? Their significant others? I think it’s probably a lot. There’s only so much we can store, whether we’re hoarders or crazed imbibers.
Why am I talking about this? Well, think of all that lovely whisky we’re all complaining about not being able to buy. It’s all being bought still, and it’s all being stored somewhere. It’s making floors creak everywhere. It’s in lock-ups, storage units, myriad stashes here, there and everywhere. Lockdown was hard, but we didn’t drink all that whisky. It’s not being consumed, not all of it. When we talk about core-range bottles like the Kilkerran we have here in front of us today, I rather fancy it’s being stashed in living rooms and spare bedrooms; it’s in whisky limbo. Maybe it’ll be popped and glugged. Maybe it’ll be sold on, for a bit more than was paid. Perhaps.
For whisky-curious folk, that wouldn’t seem strange, it’s normal for us and I think that’s where the majority of the bottles we’ve not been able to buy for a couple of years have ended up; Springbanks, Glenallachies, Clynelishes and umpteen limited-thises and special-release thats. They’re just sitting there. And so, in turn — and this is where you’ll laugh at Wally’s naivety — I think some stocks are catching up at retail. They’re sticking a wee bit longer. The auctions are cooling. There are only so many bottles of Springbank 10yo that can be sold. How many want to buy for £54 and sell for £60? I think, for many bottles, things may be settling. We’ll see.
“The swelling buffer areas of home storage units and auction houses, for core ranges at least, have forced a push-back.”
Arriving at Kennacraig recently, I nipped down to Campbeltown and stopped in at the Springbank shop. Their shelves seemed to be even busier than mine, although their floors seemed more fortified and contented. All of the Springbank core range from 10yo through to 18yo were plentiful on the shelves; Kilkerran 12yo, 16yo as well as Longrow 18yo and Peated NAS were all in abundant attendance. Yes, there was a distinct lack of cage bottles, and you’d have more chance of finding a crock of cures for climate change than a fabled 21yo, but no one could complain of a lack of whisky. I was a wee bit surprised. Pleasantly so.
There are also sightings in local retailers; bottles once more sitting on the shelf. They may not be available to the faster-than-fingers online bots, but they’re there if you’re able to step inside the bricks and mortar. It’s curious. I think the swelling buffer areas of home storage units and auction houses, for core ranges at least, have forced a push-back.
There could be many other factors helping stock ‘stick’ longer: things such as Brexit, choked exports to eastern Europe (less being fed into Russia via Latvia et al.), and less being made available for export generally, given the acute domestic strain on demand. All this, and justifiable nerves concerning a cost of living crisis. Of course, I’m just guessing. It could just be that it’s summer. But my feeling is that presently, areas of the market are starting to seem a little sated. Perhaps many are like me…empty wallets and creaky floors.
If it’s the case, and I do hope it’s so, as whisky drinkers we can perhaps get our drink on once more.
This bottle was opened within a couple of days of getting it home and I hate to spoil things but — this one is for drinking. You need to get this thing uncorked and in your face-funnel as soon as is prudently possible. It’s simply astonishing how many boxes this ticks: presentation, quality, flavour, incredible value, all of them. It’s whisky propositions like this that make you glad to be alive, because the flavour of only-ever-looking-at-it is shite.
And for those that have hit the storage saturation problem, don’t worry, Wally isn’t gonna warn you away. Keep buying as much whisky as you like.
Just don’t buy any more shelves.
Review
Kilkerran 16yo, official bottling, 2022 release
All natural, 46%ABV
£65 and tricky to find but more available than you might imagine. It’s there if you care.
It’s worth pointing out that Dallas has already reviewed last year’s Kilkerran 16yo, and I chimed in with a more positive vibe on that one too — give it a read if ya fancy.
But look, after you’ve bought this the only thing that can go wrong is dropping it on the way home. It’s from Glengyle, so even if it’s an average batch from them, £65 for a sixteen-year-old single malt, wearing an all-natural and understated outfit, is simply not any real risk at all. However, let’s get the fanboy back in the bottle and the whisky out in the glass. I love this job.
Nose
‘Thick’ isn’t a smell, but it smells thick. Malt and caramel; salted. Some baked goods, iced carrot cake. Minerals a-plenty; stone dust, gravel and slate. Salt. Some bitter notes like olive oil and waxy lemons, crayons too. You’ll need to be more sensitive to peat than I am to pick up smoke, but close to the end (and in the empty glass) it’s there. A wisp.
Palate
Dry arrival, but rich and oily leading with malt and an oaky, tannic coating of thick honey and brine. It flickers a little, offering up some floral notes, lemon, and light spices. It hangs around on the palate for ages, with a mineralic bitterness that fades to a cooking apple tartness. Water actually adds to this and brightens the lemony side, but the second (and third) glasses I left neat and thick, where it’s just great. This is very much my whisky lane.
The Dregs
A quick confession; at the time of writing, I don’t know what the score is. At first it was 8, then I sobered it down to a 7, before swinging back into another late-night nip only for it to clearly state it was an 8. Whatever I settle on, it’ll be as published. I say all of this to help you realise it’s a 7.5, but that’s not allowed.
Upon taking these notes (the first time around), I arrived at this as the first dram of the night. The only thing I’d had was a Milkshake IPA while waiting to enjoy a Thai red curry. The order of things is important. Yet, it is not absolute. Much later, I came back to this once more, after many chillis, facefuls of creamy coconut and fragrant ginger, and I can tell you that it still smacked me about the face with delight.
It’s not sitting towards any extremes of any bandwidths anywhere. It’s not simple whisky, but it’s not bewilderingly complex either, although I will suggest that it’s probably Glengyle’s most ‘dense’ (of their 46% range at least). I’m almost halfway through the bottle already (with sharing!) and I look forward to every glass — how will it be tonight? Sweet? Savoury? Briny? Oily? Elegant? Because it sits somewhere in the middle of many spectrums, it can be any and all of those things. For £65!
I know what you’re thinking, if we keep talking these whiskies up we’ll never see them; they’ll continue to be hoarded and stored everywhere. But please read my words: I encourage that it’s opened and enjoyed, tasted, known. I would also love other whisky producers to pause and look at Glengyle — which is, for all intents and purposes, a new distillery — and ask themselves, ‘How hard can it be?’
Honest, good whisky. Made well, priced fairly, sold faithfully. Once tasted, it‘ll never collect dust — or make floors creak — anywhere.
Score: 8/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. WMc
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