Kilkerran 8 Year Old Cask Strength – Re-charred Oloroso
Hey, another Kilkerran review! Since the last review I posted was also a Glengyle distillery product—Kilkerran Heavily Peated Batch 1—I’m going to skip any kind of long and rambling opening for today’s post. After all, I could probably just copy and paste half of the introduction from my look at the Heavily Peated and it would fit in a review of this Kilkerran 8 year old re-charred Oloroso just fine. Plus, I’ve been determined to get a review out this month, yet here it is, January 31, late in the evening, and I still haven’t managed to post anything before now. Ugh, I really need to get back to a review per week like the old days… a belated New Year’s goal.
Anyhow, a few quick details about this whisky. Well, one detail—the main thing that sets this whisky apart from other Kilkerran cask strength bottlings is the fact that it was matured in re-charred Oloroso casks. A while back I reviewed an earlier batch of Kilkerran 8 Year Old Cask Strength, which was matured in ex-bourbon casks. I love the bourbon-matured Kilkerran 8 releases. Although they’ve varied by batch, they are consistently solid single malts for the price. What will sherry maturation bring to the table? Well…
A lot of people really love this whisky. Like, really love it. I’m going to jump ahead of myself here and say that I’m not one of them. When it comes down to it, I’m just not usually a fan of young sherry-matured whiskies. I had hoped this would be an exception. Yes, I adore a well-aged sherry bomb, but I often find younger sherry malts to be a little lacking in depth and complexity compared to a similarly aged whisky that’s spent its life in ex-bourbon. Sherry maturation takes time. The deep red fruits, baking spices, dried fruits, and nutty notes that are often found in sherry-matured whiskies need time to really pop. And it’s crucial, in my opinion, that a decent amount of oak influence develops to balance the sherry flavors. It’s hard to get that kind of balance in less than, say, 12 years (if not more). But if any distillery can put out a young sherry bomb that overcomes that issue, Kilkerran would be at or near the top of my list to do so. Well, it was until I opened this bottle.
Kilkerran 8 Year Old Re-charred Oloroso Review
Type: Single Malt Scotch
Region: Campbeltown
Age: 8 years
ABV: 57.1%
Non chill-filtered
Natural color
Nose
Powerful and potent. Sour cherry gummies. A whiff of smokiness. Barley sugar. Dry sherry. Fresh linen. Not a very complex nose, but still fairly enjoyable.
Palate
Sherry and char. A bit of peat smoke and ash. Cinnamon candy. Vanilla fudge. Dark and milk chocolate mix. Astringent and drying. Vegetal. Amaretto. Fairly hot and young tasting. Water helps tame things and brings out a fresh blast of berries, but dulls the other flavors. Something here just doesn’t quite work for me. The balance is way off, and it’s lacking in depth.
The texture is fine, with a nice bit of oiliness.
Finish
Medium in length. Balsamic vinegar. Baking spices. Ashy smoke. Cherry pie. Cinnamon candy. The finish is pretty nice, probably the strength of this malt in general.
Overall
Disappointing. The sherry cask maturation masks the Kilkerran distillate without adding much of anything interesting. Sure, the Kilkerran character is still present, but there’s not enough of it, and it just doesn’t work with the youthful sherry notes. To my palate, it’s just not very well integrated. It pails in comparison to the bourbon matured Kilkerran cask strength bottlings. Still enjoyable, but… I can’t say I love it, or even really like it all that much.
SCORE: 5/10
Final Thoughts
As I said in the opening, sherry maturation takes time, and there just wasn’t enough time in cask for this whisky to develop properly. I know, I know, if you check other reviews of this whisky around the interwebs, you’ll find that my opinion is very much in the minority. So don’t just take my word for it. That said, the members of my local whisky group were all disappointed by this dram, so I’m not entirely alone in my thinking about this one.
Buying Advice: Well, good luck finding a bottle of this to begin with. It sold out almost immediately when it was released. If you’re thinking about buying this bottle at secondary prices, I would recommend exercising extreme caution. Personally, I wouldn’t buy this again even at MSRP (I honestly can’t remember how much I paid for this bottle, but I want to say it was around $80). For me going forward, I’ll stick to the bourbon-matured Kilkerran 8 year old, which is excellent.
Questions about my scoring system? Refer to the Review Method & Scoring Scale page.
For more reviews, check out the Whisky Review Archive.
