Kilkerran 8yo Cask Strength 2023
Bourbon 2023 Release | 55.8% ABV
The tide is turning
Auction prices are softening and hopefully that will play into the hands of the drinker again.
I picked up my first bottle of this Kilkerran at retail for £55 plus usual postage fees and I was more than happy with paying that. I was also very lucky to get a bottle as this year felt harder than ever to get hold of any of the Kilkerran and Springbank releases online.
Thanks to my fortune to be browsing social media at the time, I saw a post from a retailer stating their bottles were going on sale that evening at 6pm. I logged on five minutes early and pressed refresh until it popped up. I then rushed through typing my payment details and secured a bottle.
I’m thankfully past the stage of spending time on release day with multiple tabs open pressing F5 on every retailer page until it pops up (lockdown 2020 was a crazy time, eh?) and retailers no longer seem to all sell them on one specific day, but if I know the time when it’s happening and I can limit the time spent hunting to a minimum, that’s fine. I’ve waited a while for another 100% bourbon cask Kilkerran and with the first three hitting the shelves just before I was getting my malty geek on, I really wanted one. The FOMO I’ve managed to keep in check recently was triggered.
A few months later and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my time with it to the point the bottle is almost empty and I am eeking out the final few pours, trying desperately not to grab that bottle that is almost beckoning me towards it.
I was browsing a couple of auction sites looking for some older Ardmore one evening which, as I mentioned in my Ardmore Trio piece, is a distillery I’ve really been getting into, in part due to the lack of availability to buy much from Glengyle distillery. As I was searching, I looked at the prices of Kilkerran and Springbank. The recent Local Barley and PX Springbank releases, along with some older expressions, are still commanding prices that make it worthwhile for the flipper to grab as much as they can and send it to auction. However, the cask strength Kilkerran bottlings were below their retail price. So I decided to throw in a £55 bid on one and I wasn’t going any higher. I knew factoring in commission and the auctioneers horrific postage costs, I’d be paying more than I did for my first bottle, but I was happy the flipper made absolutely nothing and I knew I was going to be getting a really nice bottle of whisky if I won. I then looked at another running auction and it was a similar story. This time I put in £50 bids on two other bottles. I thought if I was lucky I might win one bottle but in all likelihood all three would go over their original RRP.
To my surprise, I won the first bottle with my £55 bid and that was due to the glut of these listed at one time. The market was saturated. It’s the basics of supply and demand which is fortunately something the sellers don’t appear to have grasped. In their rush to cash in, they’ve created their own mini whisky loch.
A few days later the other auction was coming to a close and, thinking my maximum £50 bids on both would be superseded, I logged out. But later that evening, I received an email informing me that I had been successful with both my bids which has resulted in me now owning more of this Kilkerran 8yo than is probably right in some people’s minds, including this writer.
I’ve no interest in hoarding it but when you bid on multiple bottles there’s always a risk you end up with more than you planned. All I can promise is I’ll be finding a way to share them. One bottle is enough for me to be getting on with.
It’s not just the bourbon cask commanding figures which surely render it pointless for the person on the other end selling for profit. Bottles of the most recent sherry cask could be had in some cases for £55 and last year’s port cask for £65. Looking back at prices from a year ago, they’re definitely on a downward trajectory.
The only outlier was the 57.1% recharred oloroso sherry cask from 2019 that was so lauded by many, which is making around £140 a bottle. It’s also a little more scarce than recent releases to find at auction. We’re back to that supply and demand thing again. If you want the best prices, the key for the drinker is to get in early when everybody is trying to flip the same bottles.
There are signs things are cooling at auction, with whiskystats.com, who analyse the auction market, reporting prices peaked in early 2022 and for the most part, there’s been a steady downward curve since, which backs up the general vibe in the community. If those trends continue, it could be good news for drinkers throughout the remainder of 2023.
A word of advice when buying from an auction site: If you’re having bottles shipped to you, be aware of the postage costs. They’re much higher than at general retail, and while I’m picking on Scotch Whisky Auctions here, this is a common theme. For example, in the UK it can be as high as £10.80 for one bottle to be shipped domestically, if you buy two, that jumps to £15.60, and three will set you back £20.40. Those prices continue to climb depending on the number of bottles. Compare that to general online whisky retail, and it’s usually between £5-£7 for as many bottles as you want and often if you spend over a certain amount, free shipping applies.
The key takeaway is it’s important to make sure you’re aware of all fees involved and it’s worthwhile calculating the final cost to avoid nasty surprises. Buy one bottle and £50 soon turns into £66.80 with commission and postage, plus a few percent more if you want to add loss or breakage cover.
Review
Kilkerran 8yo Cask Strength, Bourbon 2023 Release, 55.8% ABV
£55 sold out, but still loads at auction.
This retailed for between £55 and £60 earlier this year in the UK. As mentioned, a huge amount of it ended up at auction but it’s still around so keep an eye out and don’t bid too much. Thankfully it appears you don’t have to.
Nose
Salty, chalky, mineralic, grassy farmyard funk. Those are the highlights and I love them. I’d like to think I’d know it was a Campbeltown in a blind tasting. I’m transported to the cool, slightly floral air of a summer evening sitting outside in the garden. The light is fading, the birds are tweeting and I’m perfectly content. I love it when whisky gives you more than just descriptors and takes you to a moment. There’s also vanilla, caramel, lemon oil and lemon bonbons, along with pebble beaches, sandalwood, pickled onion juice, olives, pine needles, a slightly herbal note and soot.
Palate
A nice oily texture. More of the salt, the minerals and the funk. The lemon is back too along with the introduction of a little orange. The fruit is sweet at first, but turns more towards the sour side with grapefruit creeping in. It’s briny with vanilla, root ginger and liquorice bringing a herbal element. I get sooty smoke from the peated barley, but it’s fairly light at first before it makes more of an impact as I got to the slightly drying finish. The smoke builds with herbal sage, grass and an increasing creaminess as it dissipates.
The Dregs
I’d like to make a plea to owners J&A Mitchell not to mature all future releases in sherry or port and to give us more of this too. It’s been nearly five years since the last bourbon cask release and I hope they don’t make us wait another five, because this is what I want in my glass on a regular basis. I can sit analysing it, or I’d be just as happily relaxing with a glass and enjoying it for the great whisky it is. It’s only eight years old, it’s at cask strength, but it has no harshness. A drop of water brings out more flavour as I usually find with whisky, but only a tiny drop is needed.
I didn’t get to try the previous three bourbon cask releases, but Tyree reviewed the 2017 and scored it an exceptional 9/10. I’ve been through his notes since writing mine and you can see some of the similarities in the smells and tastes we get. I’m not getting the tropicals Tyree got on the nose, but those funky, farmyard, briny, herbal and citrus notes come through here too, which are perhaps the signature of the distillery along with a mineralic quality. You get them in a lot of their releases including the standard 12 and 16 year old. It’s what makes me want to go back for more.
Thanks to having another bottle to open, I was able to compare a pour from the end of the bottle which has been open a few months with a freshly opened bottle and see how the whisky has developed. I expected only minor differences, if any, but they were noticeably different drams.
The freshly-opened bottle was slightly subdued on the nose and exhibited more caramel and vanilla, almost like a protective blanket hiding what lies beneath. The bottle that had been opened for a few months had more citrus, farmyard grassiness, dry earth and salinity coming through. There’s depth to it and it’s a joy to nose.
On the palate the fresh bottle is brighter, with more of the sweet and sour citrus, but I feel those top notes on both nose and palate shout a bit louder than all the other flavours. There’s a better balance and integration with the older bottle. I would score it a full point higher.
Of course, when you buy 70cl of whisky you want all 70cl to be good, and it has been, but this small test has confirmed to me how much whisky can oxidise and change for the better as you go down the bottle. To try and prove my point further, I asked my wife to pour the second half of each into fresh glasses I’d marked with coloured stickers, and not tell me which was which. I thought I’d find it tricky, but I could pick the new and the old immediately. It was a 50/50 choice so not the most scientific experiment, but I was satisfied enough it had confirmed my thoughts.
Thanks to current auction prices it appears you can get hold of these bottles if you missed out the first time around. Sure, you may be paying a little more than you would have done from a retailer once you factor in the fees, but it’s well worth that little extra it in my opinion, as long as we aren’t feeding the flippers with profit. I vow to share my bottles and I feel it only right that I do. Whisky is best shared, and the best whiskies should be shared.
Score: 8/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. RT
Other opinions on this:
Got a link to a reliable review? Tell us.