Living Souls Kildalton 19yo
‘Blended Malt’ Scotch Whisky | 42% ABV
Score: 8/10
Something special.
TL;DR
An elegant, soft and disarming style that’s rarely seen at this price
Petty Protectionism?
Take a scan of your whisky shelf.
Or cabinet, or stash, or cubby - wherever you’re accumulating an inevitable, but pleasurable, litter of whisky bottles and flavours for those moments of relaxed downtime and quiet contemplation. Now, share with us, what percentage of them are independently bottled?
By which I mean - bottles that are not official distillery bottlings (OBs). Your response may betray a couple of things. Firstly, where you likely live on the whisky planet and/or secondly, providing you live in a space where independently bottled releases are widely available, it will perhaps also betray how long you’ve been living on Planet Whisky.
There’s an inevitability of whisky enjoyment in 2025, that - if it’s available to you - eventually you will accumulate a large proportion of independently bottled malts and blends. And you’ll come to love them.
In time, it may be that the majority of what you enjoy becomes smaller-scale releases and mostly from independent bottlers. It would seem there’s a dawning of realisation that independent bottlers are doing things well, pricing things fairly, and generally doing a stellar job of presenting our delicious whiskies - wherever they hail from.
This could simply be a product of how ‘into’ whisky you are. If you’re an invested aficionado; an exciter or botherer - however you describe yourself - you’ll be drawn to these releases. Whereas if you’re still in exploration mode and just sizing up the scale of the quarry that lies ahead, you may find things easier to relate to via the route of official bottlings. It matters not, one day you’ll end up buying more indies than anything else, and you’ll be very glad you are.
We could also zoom out here and compare independent distillers to larger-scale, legacy producers, but let’s not cloud the whisky, it’s more sensible for today’s thinking and tinkering to keep it a little simpler and just compare an independently bottled example versus an official release - while bearing in mind that a lot of what I may mention here doesn’t really apply to independent distillers - because they mostly ‘get it’. They love to work collaboratively and openly, and it’s my opinion that this is the sensible way to approach whisky today. Because things are changing fast.
Let’s consider what those changes are and then try to work out why they’re so.
Let’s start with the silly scenario we find ourselves in today because of, you know, legal departments and marketing ‘protectionism’ - otherwise known as stuffiness.
There was once upon a time that only one distillery absolutely refused to allow you to bottle their whisky and call it what it was: Glenfarclas. For whatever reasons, their sensibilities were such that only they could be trusted with bottling their own spirit and branding it so. Great. Understandable. Almost.
Because how utterly ironic that one of the most inconsistent official bottlers anywhere behaves in such a way. And continues to do so. Anyway…
Independent bottlers have not traditionally been able to rely on recognisable branding in the way proprietary distillers do. Thus, every single bottling whether single cask, small batch or curated product, must be pitch-perfect. They are judged continually, release by release. Usually down to limited access to stock, most releases are transient. Yet, for more and more (supposedly recognisable) brands and distillery names, they are not permitted to present them as such.
This is how it remains today, and almost every other single malt ‘brand’ has followed suit. It’s a farce of unnecessary protectionism applied liberally and clumsily without a single iota of wisdom or thought towards the wider context of whisky and how it’s very different from say, watches, or perfume, or cars or what-have-you. It’s a consumable. Designed for drinking and sharing and in order to fulfil its purpose it must, unlike those other things, be consumed. Gone forever.
And yet, Edrington, Diageo, Pernod, LVMH… whoever, they’re all playing a game of brand-over-flavour or brand-over-quality and I suspect it was introduced because someone somewhere thought it ‘prudent’ to protect The Brand; even if that’s literally the name of the place where the thing is made. More likely, today it’s more in the interests and protection of the brand department.
When it comes to an independent release, this is regardless of whether it's a homage, a love letter, or an otherwise excellent example or even a literal, positive advertisement for the whisky distillery itself. Even if it’s part of the armoury that will help build the reputation of The Brand, no one else may use ‘The Brand’.
My previous professional life orbited these concepts and I understand them fairly well, but very few of these dynamics overlap comfortably with whisky. Lest we forget, most of today' s malt whisky brands were once only represented - or even only ever heard of - via independent bottlers, who simply promoted where they were made. But, today, it is a no-go. “Thanks for establishing our name - you may no longer use it”.
These mandates have solidified in recent years and the shelves are full of obfuscation and coy packaging where inventive bottlers have had to either dance around this nonsense or simply rename things. It’s not difficult. Slap on an alias; everyone knows what it is. If we want to be very accurate, we add geographic coordinates or a what3words. Sometimes, a picture of a cat. Well, we know what that could be. Although beware - therein lies a problem; not every cat is a Sutherland wildcat.
So what happens? Well it takes time, but we lead with our wallets and palates. All that protectionism seems to have paid off in some ways and those brands have gotten a little greedy. So our frugal promiscuity drives us to embrace new concepts. New names. New labels. It follows that, in our abandonment of the brands, we discover delight in the trust of independents and creative labelling. Unintentionally, but obviously, distance from the original brand grows because - not permitted to be front and centre on these fantastic and exciting products - they are quite simply rendered secondary, at best. At worst, they may be altogether forgotten.
I’d argue many are already. We’re fickle, we’re after tasty things and we don’t care. We’ve been taught not to. Of the most typically common ‘hidden’ brands - how many official Macallan, Highland Park or Clynelish releases do you have on the shelf? Then, how many indies of the same? For most, including me, it’s telling.
In 2025 we’re flat calm with ‘an Unnamed Speyside Distillery (M)’ or ‘an Islay Single Malt’ or ‘a Highland Single Malt… Meow” because even if the label is bereft of clues (they rarely are) they’ll flat out tell you at a tasting. Nod, nod, wink, wink, I shouldn’t tell you… of course, but it’s all for show.
I’m hardly everywhere, all of the time, but as far as I know no one has had a Cease and Desist through a word-of-mouth exchange or hosting a tasting. Because using someone else’s brand or intellectual property may be illegal, but telling you where something is made is not.
I’ll tell you what else we’re flat calm with; ‘blended malts’ or ‘teaspooned malts’ - even when we’re highly suspicious they are not at all. Can you imagine the arse-ache of opening countless casks in any given parcel just to add a ‘teaspoon’ of something else to each? Or even disgorging and re-casking for the same? Most likely it’s a paperwork exercise. It matters not. With the stroke of a pen it’s rendered ‘blended’ and no longer the product of a single distillery. It’s a little mental.
Eventually, we taste it and learn that this is actually to our advantage. We lap it up. The Brands can keep their IP and sell it for an inflated price. All while they continue to make far more than they can sell under their own contrived fashions. The indies are teaching us - again - where the tasty stuff is.
So, in the end, I ask anyone with insight - how has this folly actually protected any of The Brands?
Today, I argue that it has simply enabled us to willingly, and happily, forget them.
Review
Kildalton 19yo, Islay ‘Blended Malt’ Scotch Whisky, refill ex-bourbon and sherry casks, 42% ABV
£135 and still some availability
Case in point. In 2024 Ardbeg released a 17 year old homage to their original of 20 years ago. They diluted it to 40%, advertised their chill-filtering and charged the earth (£160 for what was a £30 whisky) and, arguably worse, released the clumsiest back-firing whisky PR of all time citing the idea as one for ‘the fans’. It’s hideous and, if the comments section of Dramface is anything to go by, also quite hilarious.
None of us here went near it. Herein lies the danger of following those ‘brands’. Once they have your loyalty, they can’t help themselves - they’re gonna attempt to ream you. They have their own 19yo release in the shape of Traigh Bhan, but again you’re in the order of £250 for it.
Anyway, I needed a softly-peated banger for an event and went on the search, very happily willing to embrace whatever - branded or not.
Up popped Living Souls. Again.
From nowhere, this brand, in less than two years, has gone from curio to Instabuy.
Blend? Small batch? Collab? Oddball? Undisclosed distillery? Teaspooned? Looks like a bottle of cognac? We don’t care. Chances are we’ll be purring like a whisky-filled kitten and we’ll be all the richer while we do. One of the wise guides at Glasgow’s Good Spirits Co. let me try this first and it was an obvious buy, but even without the sampler, I now have so much trust in this label that, even at £135, I’d have gone ahead and followed their recommendation on word alone.
The label says ‘Kildalton’. It also states ‘Islay Blended Malt’. Forced, necessary nonsense. But, these days, we don’t care. In the bag it went.
It’s also 42% ABV and, while it’s possible this is actually natural cask strength it doesn’t state so. It does, however, state that it’s non-chill filtered and natural colour. Good enough for me; I mentioned I needed ‘soft’ - both from the perspective of smoke and alcohol impact. It was a perfect fit. I couldn’t have dreamed up better.
That it’s £25 cheaper and two years older than the official release, even betterer.
As well as what I needed for the event, I snagged a selfish bottle too. Spoiler: the level betrays how great an idea that was.
Score: 8/10
Something special.
TL;DR
An elegant, soft and disarming style that’s rarely seen at this price
Nose
Cool, blue smoke swirls. Sweet, ruby-red grapefruits, sea shells, seaweed, leaf mulch, old polished oak, worn leather and some Vaseline and rich beeswax. An elegant and easy-to-nose gem.
Palate
Graceful. That cool smoke brings a hint of soot, but everything is light and sweetly fresh. Still citrus-forward for the fruit, but they’re sweeter with a salty edge. It’s slightly waxy too, in the way that all scotch malt whiskies (when left alone) can become. It’s soft, but also somehow ‘concentrated’. More saltwater brine with some green notes, olives maybe, swirling with old, sweet oak spices, wood polish and honey. It’s very, very pretty. It feels like a homage to an old Islay style that we simply can’t afford these days.
If you’re into using water to open things up, take care, adding a drop or two can set things off in a subtle stone fruit and baked goods direction, but anything more and it’s adrift. I preferred this one neat every time.
The Dregs
This is not a cheap whisky. It’s £135 and it’s ‘only’ 19 years old. But - dare I say - it tastes a little older and it’s of a style that is rare to procure these days, especially if you’re after such things without offering up organs. The only thing that you could suggest missing is maybe - maybe - a slight loss in impact and grip at 42% ABV, but that’s me being typically petty indeed. It’s objectively lovely.
It’s also a great example of how independent bottlers are stretching their scope these days. No longer content with single casks and small, two-cask batches, they’re actively developing branded products in their own right. Encouragingly, this label states ‘Batch #1’. We see these efforts from many of today’s modern independents, with sharp styling or fun labelling - alongside all that nice information we like to see that encourages trust through transparency. Well, let’s say they add as much as they’re permitted to.
There’s a possible raised eyebrow from me that - theoretically - this kind of release could come about from an older cask of under-strength malt, fortified with some decent strength malt at 19 years old to raise the ABV up into ‘whisky-zone’ once more. But I have no insight here whatsoever, I’m purely shooting in the dark based on specs and character alone. The truth is, I don’t care.
I also simply do not care that it says ‘Blended Malt’ on the label. It is not. I simply do not care that it could be teaspooned. I very much doubt it is. I simply do not care that it says Kildalton. Because, of course, it isn’t. It’s just a lovely bottle of malt whisky.
What it is, is a beautiful, fairly rare, delicate and surprisingly satisfying Islay whisky that any distiller or whisky-maker would be proud of. It went down very well at said event.
Living Souls deserve to be cranked another notch or two up the buy-on-sight scale. They benefit hugely from unlikely beauties like this. We too benefit from an affordable peach of a thing we don’t often get to interact with. It’s a real win-win and a lovely thing to exist for the price. We benefit from the fact it can’t be sold for what it actually is. We benefit from the dropping of the brand. This, oddly, ends up being a good thing.
And yet, I ask you, who else should be benefitting, but is not? Who’s not enjoying the warm glow of positive feedback after making such an excellent thing, that shows smoky malt whisky in such an elegant light?
Well, unfortunately, due to such needless obfuscation and opacity, it’s the distillery that actually made it that’s missing out. And that’s a shame.
Score: 8/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. WMc
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