Mistakes happen. In many professions, you have to sweep whatever the results were under the proverbial rug and start over. At Kilchoman distillery, unnamed employee mistakenly combined a three year old run of their flagship Machir Bay with a fresh ex-port matured expression in 2014. Instead of washing it down the drain or drinking it immediately, they stuck it in an ex-bourbon barrel to see if time would provide any hope before finishing the strange marriage off in an ex-ruby port cask. The beginning and the maturation process were, as the general manager called it, “am bùrach”, or “a mess”. The Kilchoman Am Bùrach is a unique mistake in many ways, not lease of which is that it survived and thrived long enough to be bottled. The ultimate hope of any young spirit.
Distillery: Kilchoman
Region: Islay
Age: NAS
Strength: 46%
Price: $114.99
Maturation: ex-port, ex-sherry, ex-bourbon, ex-ruby port…a mess
Location: Rockside Farm
Nose: Brine, smoke, raisin, wintergreen, medicinal
Palate: Chocolate, coffee, char, peat
Finish: Wintergreen, peat, smoke
Comments:
Adam – I love how alive and crackling the nose is, yet still elegant. Like a polished gent in a tuxedo who can still turn a profane phrase when needed. The brine and smoke mix with a really lovely raisin on the nose, evoking all the port/sherry iterations this whisky saw. The Am Bùrach has a story to tell and while it can be difficult to tease out all the individual threads because of how well it is blended together, the whole is worthwhile and more than enough to justify the (justifiably great) story. It really feels like an Islay Plus. The smoke and peat you expect from an Islay malt, plus some chocolate or wintergreen or fruit at unexpected moments. While I’m not always a fan of their price points, this expression reminds me that Kilchoman employs some phenomenal blenders, to tease such great complexity out of some younger whiskies. And this scotch is no baby, either!
Bill – It hits the peak and char right away and backs off from that and goes to a nice velvety chocolate and the sweet tones of banana and caramel finish. The Am Bùrach hits all the heavy notes first and backs off into the finish for me.
It’s polyphony but it’s not discord.
Henry – The nose is seriously complex. Sweetness of the port cask mixes with wintergreen and brown sugar with gentle breezes of brine. Campfire smoke enters on the palate along with char and burnt caramel. With all those disparate elements, it’s a wonderful surprise how well integrated the whole is, with a pleasant savory sweet-smoky finish. It’s polyphony but it’s not discord.
Kristin – I like the Am Bùrach a lot. The burn goes away quickly.
Ben – I’ll never be able to run away from the fact that it smells like that he-man/ghost busters slime from when you were a kid, reminiscent of a black marker. But the flavor is like a calico cat. There’s the char and the peat – a lot of “little bit of” mixed in. I like this, I do. It’s comfortable. Like a toy I played with all day long as a kid. It’s the smell of the inside of the shell when you crack a nut. Non-fauna protein, or the growth of flora. This is a warming-you-up kind of whisky.
