Kilchoman

A limited edition Islay Single Malt with a unique aging process and fruit-forward appeal.

The Kilchoman distillery is unique for several reasons. It is the first new distillery on Islay in over 125 years. It's one of only six Scotch distilleries to carry out traditional floor maltings, and one of only two to do the malting, distilling, maturing, and bottling on site. Furthermore, they even grow 30% of their Barley right there on the farm. It was started in 2005 by Anthony Wills, who ran an independent single cask bottling company for 8 years before this and is obsessed with building the ultimate farm distillery where he can take Whisky back to its roots.

Before you can understand what Kilchoman STR Single Malt Whisky is as a dram, you need to understand what STR means on its own. Simply said, STR is an interesting hybrid form of barrel recycling. It stand for “Shave, Toast, Re-char.” In this case, fresh Red Wine casks are shaved to remove a bit of the red-stained wood and reveal some now virgin oak. The cask is then toasted to caramelize the remaining sugars before being re-charred. This lets the Whisky age in a Wine cask AND virgin cask at the same time. In 2012 they filled 43 casks prepared this way, yielding just 14,500 bottles at 50% ABV.