2021 Release Sherry Cask Batch 5 | 56.9% ABV

kilkerran 8 cask strength 56.9 — Score: 8/10

**Something special.**
***TL;DR***
*A fantastic whisky. Nothing more. Nothing less.*

Can I get to that sweet spot a little quicker with some whi-ence?

Despite what sounds like a fairly elaborate and unnecessary party trick that usually results in soggy shirts and reddened faces, the neck pour is, in this humble writer’s opinion, a real thing.

So too is the shoulder pour. It follows logic, it follows reason. The neck pour is what we whisky exciters call the section of whisky that’s first extracted from a brand new bottle. The shoulder is the next bit, the section between the bottom of the neck and where the straight sides of the bottle begins. It seems weird to apportion sections to a bottle of liquid, given that if you turn the bottle upside down, the whisky that was resting in the neck is now… somewhere else.

The neck and shoulder pour is a shorthand term to describe the initial smell and taste profile for what we expect the rest of the bottle to follow - the first handshake. Given that we might be experiencing that whisky for the first time, it’s natural to think that our initial impression will remain true for the rest of that bottle. However, we often hear things like: “Once it was past the shoulder it really started to open up”. I guess in a way, by assigning titles to these sections of a whisky bottle, it’s discounting them as inferior, maybe even symbolising a rite of passage to get to the really good stuff below it. In the case of a strange opening gambit, it could be considered a feat of endurance with hopes of better days ahead. You see, by believing there’s such a thing as a neck and shoulder pour in a whisky bottle means you also accept that whisky changes over time - that the spirit inside that glass bottle potentially gets better with age. As we can see, Dougie bucks that trend (as do some whiskies), but there are ardent deniers of this “phenomenon” of neck and shoulder pours, that it just cannot be, and there are many reasons interchangeably given as to why it’s not a thing.

An oft presented reason for the neck pour not being a thing is that it’s not the whisky, it’s you. Sorry. I know we used to like each other and we’ve been through a lot together, but no more. Time waits for no person. We grow as humans all the time, even if you still only reach the lofty height of 5.5ft on a windy day, other parts continue to grow. Ears get bigger, but less receptive. Tongues get sharper and more adept at forming words into Exocet missiles. Eyes grow wider at the prospect of Talisker 18 and palates, thank the big yin, expand to offer a widened ability to taste, smell and subsequently talk about this beautiful stuff we call whisky. It’s just your palate maturing, not the whisky changing, so best accept this assertion and move on: whisky remains completely uniform in its composition, forever.

We all have more than one bottle in our cupboards, right? Unless you’re an expert in self control and can spiritually deny yourself the pleasure of popping another bottle before you’ve finished the current one, we’re all guilty of having multiple bottles open, so that we have a choice of drams on any given night. By the time we’ve worked our way through to the middle of any one bottle, we’ve been drinking other whiskies, developing our palates and exposing ourselves to expanded flavour experiences. When you finally get down to the middle of the first bottle, you’re not tasting a whisky that has changed since you opened it, but rather you have changed since you first opened it.

“Massive and eye twitching, bold sweet fruits and match striking deliciousness.”

— Dougie swoons over a sample

One could reasonably argue that whisky is, despite all the marketing and romanticism, just a formulaic alcohol based liquid and that the components which make up that liquid are inherently inside the liquid and cannot suddenly decide to change their chemical makeup because they saw some air for a while. The whisky has been inside a wooden cask all its life for goodness sake, exposed to this so-called “oxygen” and now, after it’s been decanted into glass and expedited to your Tuscan hillside pad, you think it’s suddenly going to change in 30 minutes? Don’t think so pal - whisky is sealed inside the bottle and, other than the stuff trapped between the surface of the whisky and the stopper, it’s not that much oxygen anyway? A breath or two perhaps. Actually, has anyone sucked on a half-full bottle of whisky to see how much air is extracted? I did - it’s about a mouthful.

Around six months ago, one of the Dramface team posted a message to our group asking if anyone would like a random selection of samples from a cupboard they were clearing in order to make way for new stock. Obviously I barged in with elbows fully extended and soon after a parcel arrived with a smorgasbord of interesting drams within, from Bimber Peated to The Lost Distillery’s Jericho. Among the micro bottles was the Kilkerran 8yo Cask Strength - 56.9% and after an evening of primo drams, I tailed the “sesh” with a snifter from this sample bottle; it was sensational. Massive and eye twitching, bold sweet fruits and match striking deliciousness. Not content with leaving my evening peaking Mount Whisky, I then tried a single cask Bimber exclusive to Abbey Whisky, and it too was intensely fruity but had a really engaging burnt match, sulphuric edge to it. Damn it, now I need two more whiskies in my stash.

Due to the state of things in whiskyville when it comes to anything from Springbank and Glengyle right now, the 8yo Cask Strength is very much sold out forever at retail, but also as a matter of course, it’s plentifully available at auction for around double what it cost the original buyer. I don’t dance to that sort of music, so reluctantly I filed this wee beauty in the “irritating realities of whisky in 2022” archive and moved along to the Bimber. This Abbey Whisky exclusive was also long gone but even then, at £120 a pop when it was available at retail, it would've been far outside my comfort zone anyway. A little easier to take but yes, the evening did end a bit crestfallen. I’ve written recently of my attitude towards chasing whisky, so with a bit of a side-eye and a grumbling sigh, I emptied the remnants of the two sample bottles into two glasses and toasted to profiteering.

Review

Kilkerran 8yo Cask Strength, 2021 Batch 5 Release, 56.9% ABV
£48 on release, now auction only

I know I moan about auctions and the false bottom of vapid prosperity that such websites enable, but the flipside of auctions is they also allow us to find some hidden gems too. So long as they don't start with Spring or Kil. Or Daft. Or Loch. Or Mac. Gems like the Cadenhead’s Glen Garioch 9yo Tawny Port or the “An Orkney ' bottling from the same Warehouse Tasting range, both deliver incredible whisky experiences for not much under £50, all fees included. I’ve won bottles that have fallen off the radar of speculative folk, or even bottles that have been lost among the thousands of listings of Springbank, Lochlea and Macallan. One such bottling that made its way through the cracks was an Abbey Whisky Bimber exclusive - yes, that very same one that I wouldn’t have paid £120 for even at retail. Well it turns out I didn’t have to - winning the auction for a hammer price of £75 meant that I managed to snaffle a bottle of this tasty beverage at over £40 less than it cost at retail; someone lost out big, but my stars had aligned.

The Kilkerran 8yo still eluded me and not willing to pay double the price just to taste that delicious nectar again, I did what I do best: moaned about it on social media. I had just posted an image of a tasting set generously provided to me by a fellow barfly, which came about in the chat during an Aqvavitae V-pub stream. This set contained a nice range of Kilkerran, from the 12yo and 16yo core range, to the Port and Sherry cask double-releases and a final distillery hand-fill - but no cask strength. I put a parting shot on the tail end of that post: “Now, does anyone have a spare bottle of 8yo CS 2021 they don’t want anymore? C’mon…one of you must.”

One of you did. Within a matter of hours I had a message from a chap called Gary to say he did have one, and he did fancy parting with it. Eschewing traditional methods of monetary exchange, we decided on a bottle swap - and a Knockdhu 8yo from the Alistair Walker stable of magic disappeared from my whisky stash. Finally I had my grubby mitts upon that pristine white cardboard tube. I’m still amazed by the attitudes and willingness for the fellow whisky exciter demographic to trade demanded bottles so long as the trade is of similar value - not more. Gary wanted to trade because he knew I’d open it, and that he didn’t want, or indeed want anyone else, to profit from it. Remarkable considering how easy it would be for him to have doubled his investment. Thanks Gary - you are respected and appreciated.

As is traditional when I get a new bottle of whisky, I stuck it in the cupboard away from prying eyes and promised I wouldn’t touch it until I’d cleared at least one bottle from the opened list, which extends to about 95% of my total collection. I managed to clear a few off the decks during my recent summer holiday and to celebrate having two full weeks of Scottish sun, sand and small-person sulking, I opened the Kilkerran and poured a generous dram. By the way, has anyone else discovered how amazing drinking whisky outside is? It’s a whole new level of smell and taste experience - I’m exposing so much more flavour inside my whiskies when I enjoy them surrounded by fresh air. This 8yo Cask Strength, sampled under the twinkling stars of central Scotland? Wow. Either memory has failed me once again or the neck pour of this bottle is nothing like the wee sample dram I tried all those months back, because I would remember the overwhelming smack of silage, dirty farmyard, hay fields and tractors. This Kilkerran 8yo could be described, quite reasonably, as filthy.

Why is that? What’s different about this bottle compared to the lovely balanced sweet and sharp sample? Well, if I really sit and think about it, the lightbulbs above me glow to a red-hot brightness and burst in a shower of sparks: the one thing about samples from pals that is common to almost every sample provided by anyone, ever, is that they’re never the neck pour. Samples are taken from bottles way beyond this point, usually the middle but more often than not near the tail end of a bottle’s life. That means a whisky that’s been exposed to, depending on measure size, at least 15 pours; that means 15 times where stoppers have been popped. That’s 15 times the whisky glugs out of the bottle and air glugs in - it’s physics. Then the bottle sits for six months half-full. I wonder, given that I believe neck pour to be a thing, if the sample I received of Kilkerran 8yo was the last dregs of that bottle? If it was, then how do I get my whisky to taste the same without waiting for many months? Well we arrive at the nexus, between holidays and heading back into the furnace of work once again, between family bickers and shaky sanity when I can consider things like neck pours and what it all means.

I’m going to conduct a test. Not scientific like, but emotional and metaphysical. I’m going to decant the rest of the neck pour and whatever else takes up the volume of a 125ml sample bottle to the very brim - no room for air here - and seal it tightly shut. The remaining contents of the main bottle I’m going to split in half and put one side into an empty Bladnoch bottle and keep the other side in the original Kilkerran bottle, sealed half-full of air from that point in time. Then, in the pursuit of psycho-science, I’m going to expose the Bladnoch bottled Kilkerran to air - loads of it - wheech that bottle about the place to get as much fresh air into that squared glass bottle as I can. Enough to simulate those 15-20 openings of the bottle we usually perform, at least, and try to emulate the shoogling of the contents when pouring, to swirl it all up and make it like a real test. And then I’m going to leave them all for weeks. Maybe even a month, if I have the patience. Then I’m going to decant the contents of those three bottles into three glasses and compare the living daylights out of them. Who knows what I’ll find - absolutely nothing probably, but where’s the fun in that!? Till then, fellow scientists!

Glass #1

Neck Pour

Nose

Fragrant wood, warmed cedar lintel. Oily toffee, dunnage warehouse, merest whiff of suncream, buttered toast. Bright red fruits and grandma’s homemade jam - tart and sweet.

Palate

Jet fuel. Sweet caramelised oranges, winter spices, cloves, cinnamon, star anise. Burning rubber.

Glass #2

Simulated Opening

Nose

Oranges, new make spirit, syrupy, plasticine, caramelised nuts.

Palate

After water, sweet sulphur and astringency.

Glass #3

Sealed half-full original bottling

Nose

Treacle fudge, oranges, dunnage. Burnt oak.

Palate

Powerful, earthy smoke, melting plastic, nondescript aftershave. Water - taste is sweeter, more burnt caramel, still sulphuric.

The Dregs

Roughly a month has passed. In regards to the tasting notes above, I must qualify the results - every note I’ve found and written down for each of these three glasses is present in the others. That’s to say that all three glasses of whisky are identical; and that is a really quite disappointing result. I expected the neck pour to remain powerfully agricultural, like the first dram I poured four weeks ago under the Scottish stars. I expected the sealed half-full original bottle to be slightly less potent, but still a very farmy version of the neck pour. And the “simulated opening” bottle, the decanting of the Kilkerran into an empty Bladnoch bottle? I expected this to be vastly different to the others - rounded, softer, less silagey - for one simple reason - I abused that whisky to within an inch of its life.

I opened the bottle nearly every other day and let it aerate for 30 minutes. I opened it at night, in the morning, when I was cooking (often quite fragrant dishes) and I shoogled that open bottle so hard it came spurting out the top. I blew into the bottle while shaking it. I put the stopper back on and violently shook it. I sat it in different rooms, open, to fluctuate the temperatures and airy environments. I did most things that I thought would have an impact on the development of a whisky - exposure to loads of air.

Yet nothing I did inherently changed the whisky. Moving from one glass to the next revealed a whisky that was no different in smell, taste or appearance than the other two glasses - they were one and the same. However, the whisky inside all three glasses was different from my experience with the very first pour from the bottle - it was a filthy experience then, but a far more enjoyable experience of woody, buttery toffee with edgy sulphur this time. The decanted bottles had all matured, or changed at least, at the exact same rate.

One thing did stand out, like a fluorescent budgie smuggler at a wedding, and it was the overwhelming feeling of drinking whisky inside a dunnage warehouse. Let me explain. When I’ve visited most distilleries there is a familiar smell that permeates to the walls of every single one - it’s a unique smell found nowhere else, and is a visceral scent that gets the mouth watering and the brainfart motor spinning. It’s a combination of new-make spirit, earth, dust, damp, smoke, wood, peat, must, rat poo, barley, metal, mould and fresh air. A vast combination of many interesting scents that, if you are lucky enough to drink whisky within this sensory environment, makes for a very memorable experience.

When I poured the three glasses of whisky in my kitchen I didn’t realise the time of day; my wife began preparing our dinner soon after I poured - onions and garlic were chopped, tomatoes were pureed and other ingredients deployed; it all made the objective smelling and tasting of whisky impossible. So I removed myself to our upstairs bedroom and cracked a window open, so I could get some fresh air blowing over me as I investigated this whisky. Having done this many times before, I now try where possible to appraise whisky either outside or beside an open window, because it has a neutralising effect on the environment - any internal room in any house will have its own inherent smells, whether a carpet, deodorant, reed diffuser or fabric softener, there will be smells present that colour the whisky experience. I’ve had notes appear inside whisky like freshly aired bedsheets, and turned around to see my wife hanging up freshly aired bedsheets.

Drinking the Kilkerran beside my open window was illuminating. It immediately shot me back to Campbeltown and drinking whisky at Springbank distillery and inside the dunnage warehouse for the Cadenhead’s Warehouse Tasting tour. Standing in a cool warehouse with casks maturing around us, fresh air blowing in and mingling with our noses as they reach into the glass. The smells that appeared in each of my Kilkerran glasses boosted the glorious dunnage experience, with smells of treacle fudge, burnt oak and caramelised oranges - super flavours that my mind's eye associated with distilleries and warehouses, and subsequently transported me there again. For an hour I was transfixed, in a dreamland of memories and whisky.

So as a whisky drinking experience, this Kilkerran 8yo is fantastic; full of depth, complexity and powerful flavours to be extracted, fiddled with and explored. Adding water opened up the sweeter notes, reduced the sulphuric edges and amped the oranges. Once you acclimatise to the raw power of the spirit, there’s an abundance of enjoyment to be found - but it does take patience to get to know it. Persist and you’re well rewarded. As a further comparison I also received from Gary a sample of another Kilkerran 8yo; the 2019, 57.1% version - the “good one” as I’ve been told. I have to say, despite this version being really tasty and delivering a more robustly orange/clove flavour profile, I thought it aligned quite easily with what other Campbeltown drams are like - that’s to say bloody brilliant, but a familiar-feeling whisky. Whereas this version of Kilkerran cask strength is such a compelling and surprising whisky, it stands apart from most other whiskies I’ve tried. For that reason it’s my pick of the two.

In conclusion, the tests conducted with the Bladnoch bottle made absolutely no difference to the whisky compared to the other decantings from the same mother bottle. A pointless test? I don’t think so. This whisky didn’t change in relation to the other decantings from the same bottle, but it did change since my first pour of it. I naively tried to capture that initial neck pour inside the small sample bottle but, it turns out whisky can’t be frozen in time. It adopts the same linear ageing timeline like our own and we all know that time stops for no-one. Perhaps over six months or even a year the Kilkerran 8yo would noticeably change, but I realise now I have no way to compare the same bottle over two distant points. Time and entropy changes everything, including whisky.

I will revisit this bottle six months from now (if there’s any left) and report back, now I have this far more developed anchor to reference. This was a surprising test - it flew in the face of my own preordained expectations, and once again proved me naive, but it did show that the neck pour of a whisky is a real thing, and can be vastly different from a whisky that’s been open even for a short space of time. Four weeks was all it took for this to transform into a way less farmy and far more approachable whisky. The test also showed that exposing a larger quantity of whisky to air, and shaking it violently for four weeks makes no difference to the whisky whatsoever. What fun!

I can see now why people trade punches for this bottle - it’s delicious and has something new each time you visit - but I still abhor opportunists flogging their second or third bottles on auction sites, preventing the drinkers from experiencing it affordably for themselves. One last thanks to Gary, for not being one of them.

Score: 8/10

Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC

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