An eight-year-old Kilkerran single malt that has been matured exclusively in sherry casks before being bottled at cask strength. Aromas of maraschino cherries, vanilla fudge, toffee pudding and roasted coffee beans fill the nose, complemented by notes of plum, cherry, raspberries, cooking apples, lemon and dark chocolate throughout the palate, with a delicate layer of peat smoke peeping through.
Tasting notes
Nose: The peat aroma from the lightly peated barley is apparent from the off and some of the green apples which are becoming a feature of Kilkerran are also present. This whisky is like a favourite dessert, rhubarb crumble, stewed rhubarb, vanilla and all butter shortbread.
Palate: There’s an earthiness and saltiness, exactly what you want to taste in a Campbeltown dram. This is combined with icing sugar and puff candy which gives a sweetness to the whisky, along with milk chocolate and walnut flavours.
Finish: The peat remains, along with a sootiness, pencil shavings and a liquorice influenced maltiness.
Review 128 - 15th May 2021
Highly anticipated, the Kilkerran 8 Year Old Cask Strength was one of many of this years bottle releases that sold out at lightening speeds.
We aren't going to go into detail about the previous releases as there are plenty of reviews which are already an excellent source for that information, but we will recommend one.
Checkout Brians Malt Musings Post
This review was a head to head comparison with the Kilkerran 8 Year Old Cask Strength 57.1% ABV edition released in 2019, our review for that edition is available here.
Both Samples of the Kilkerran 8 Year Old Cask Strength 57.1% (2019) and 56.9% were kindly supplied by Tom H in a dram swap. Cheers Tom!
The 2021 version is wholly matured in Ex-Oloroso Sherry. Before being bottled at 56.9% ABV, it is Non Chill Filtered (NCF) and Natural Colour.
When it was available it had a retail price of around £49.95 which brings in a value score for this 8 Year Old of 98.76 out 100.
On the nose, it is immediately a sherry influenced nose, that is dark, dank and musty rich alcoholic fruits, a dunnage nose once again, just not as intense as the 2019 edition. There is also an earthiness with going on, but there very little smoke on this one compared to the 2019 and you need to be patient for it to reveal itself.
On the palate, it is the expected rich sherry fruits of mainly cherry and some prune. It is earthy with honeyed peat and smoke, reminiscent of smokey embers. The alcohol is nippy on the palate. The finish is oaky and drying with a touch of cherry.
Verdict, the nose of the 2019 edition is more impactful and deeper, this the 2021 has slightly less of the dunnage mustiness going on, the slightly lower ABV does gives more alcohol nip. There is very little in it between the two whiskies which are very tasty indeed. The price for these desirable bottles represents excellent value, which adds to the appeal and unfortunately the 'Flipper' nature of how fast these bottles sell out.
For an overall score, this edition gets out of 100, so 1 point below the 2019 edition and not quite as high as the Glen Scotia's released for the Campbeltown Festival, but excellent scores nonetheless.
If you were fortunate to get a bottle, please comment below how you find them and how would you score them.