Kilkerran 14yo Campbeltown "Virtual" Malts Festival'20...

Kilkerran 14yo Campbeltown "Virtual" Malts Festival'20 (57.8%): As you all know this year's Campbeltown Malts Festival got canceled earlier because of obvious reasons no one could do anything about... But Springbank Distillers came up with this great idea of carrying it online instead in October with several virtual tasting sessions and seminars and also offered tasting kits and Festival bottlings to be shipped all over the world to the attendees. Mostly because of the accumulated cost of shipment, tariffs, taxes and other fees but also because of the huge time difference between Los Angeles and Campbeltown we sadly had to decide to opt out... But during all this we didn't know that someone unbelievably nice had some ideas to ease our despondency: Our dear friend Ian Sunderland contacted us and offered to send samples from every Festival bottling he ordered and wouldn't take "no" as an answer. Well, here we are now sitting at my desk and starting to taste each bottle one by one. Thanks to Ian's incredible generosity..! The first one is the Kilkerran release... It is a 14 year old triple distilled whisky aged in refill ex-bourbon casks.

Color: Lemon chiffon, unoaked white wine color with a thin ring around the glass turning quickly into fast running but oily legs.

Nose: Vanilla, beeswax soap bars and Asian pear slices. Touch of peat, wet sand and pebbles. After adding water: Sweet pastry shelves in a bakery, lime juice and crumbly pie crust. Rock salt and candied berries.

Palate: Oatmeal cookies, crunchy dry malt and breakfast cereals. Vanilla pastry cream, aquavit and linden tea. Handling water quite well... Pomelo, rosemary leaves and salt. Light smoke more like burning lumber or burning straw bales. Ground coriander...

Finish: Long with white pepper, ground ginger and brine.

Overall: I believe this is the second triple distilled Kilkerran I ever tasted.. If I am not mistaken the first one was in Campbeltown Malts Festival in 2017. I actually remember seeing some other casks in the warehouses marked as "triple distilled" as well. So, it is quite obvious that they experimented with triple distillation for more than a couple times but in the end we didn't see anything more than a few special releases (yet)... The cask influence is minimal, it is very distillate forward and in spite of its age it still noses and tastes pretty young. I would expect this whisky being bottled by Cadenhead's to be honest... It suits somehow more to their style. Thanks again to Ian Sunderland for the sample. We will continue the triple distilled theme with the 18yo Hazelburn in the next post..!

Price: £75

83/100