1. Kilchoman is named so because the distillery sits in the parish of Kilchoman, Kilchoman Church is only a few hundred metres from the still house.
2. It takes 17 days to transform harvested Kilchoman barley into new make spirit which is filled into casks
o 1 day drying the harvested barley
o 2 days steeping
o 5 days malting
o 1 day peating
o 2 days Kiln drying
o 1 day mashing
o 4 days fermenting
o 1 day distilling
3. Only 10 casks of Kilchoman were filled in 2005, the distillery’s founding year.
4. Kilchoman is approximately 1/10th the size of Islay’s next smallest distillery and 1/50th the size of Islay biggest distillery.
5. Kilchoman is one of only 7 Scotch whisky distilleries practicing traditional floor malting.
6. Kilchoman was the first distillery to be built on Islay for 124 years.
We are well underway with production in 2014 now and the small changes to the distillery have certainly made life a little easier on the malt floor! A conveyor in the middle of the floor now takes the barley straight up and into the Kiln.. A very welcome improvement from previously using broom handles and a variety of other things to poke barley down a shoot at the end of the malt floor. A very happy production team now!
We have had a busy start to 2014 at the distillery with lots of new equipment being fitted. As well as the new Conisby warehouse, which now holds all our maturing casks, we have installed two new vatting tanks in the warehouse opposite the still house. The new vatting tanks will marry the Machir Bay, 100% Islay and other releases prior to bottling. We have also made improvements to the malt handling which will make moving the barley from the malt floor to the kiln quicker and easier, no more poking barley down a hole with a broom handle! A new corking machine and conveyors in the bottling hall have brought big smiles to the faces of the bottling team – bruised hands from pushing in 1000’s of corks a day will be a thing of the past! We look forward to showing off these improvements to visitors when we fully reopen on February the 6th.
Happy New Year from everyone at Kilchoman! It was a great 2013 with a few changes at the distillery. A new warehouse has been built, new heat exchanging equipment has been installed and it was also a record production year with a little over 130,000 litres of alcohol being produced.
We are hoping for another fantastic year in 2014 and here is what we have planned for you..
– Machir Bay 2014 (Spring)
– Loch Gorm (Spring)
– 100% Islay 4th Edition (Spring)
– Cask Strength Release (Autumn)
– Port Cask Matured (Autumn)
We have had a great end to the year at Kilchoman and just to top it off our latest release, the 2007 Vintage, has been awarded Islay Single Malt of the Year by the Whisky Advocate Magazine. Brilliant news, our thanks go to Whisky Advocate. Merry Christmas and here’s to a prosperous 2014!
http://whiskyadvocate.com/whisky/2013/12/19/whisky-advocate-award-islay-single-malt-of-the-year-2/
For guaranteed Christmas delivery on all UK orders
please place your orders no later Wednesday 18th December.
For guaranteed Christmas delivery on all orders outside of the UK please
place your orders by Monday 16th December.
Orders placed after these dates will be dispatched up to the 24th December.
Please note orders placed after 25th December will not be
dispatched until 7th January 2014.
We have lots of new festive gifts available online and from the distillery for the christmas. On the whisky side we have the Machir Bay gift packs and miniature bottle & hip flask gift sets; perfect for the whisky lover. We also have elegent Kilchoman tweed gilets, wallets and caps as well as all the branded gifts you can imagine. As if that wasn’t enough the girls in the cafe have created a special festive menu which is not to be missed, so drop by the distillery or take a look online. Happy Christmas!
Visitor Centre, Shop and Cafe is Open Monday – Friday 10am to 5pm
General Tours available at 11am and 3pm or by appointment. Managers Tours available on Wednesdays at 2pm.
Christmas Week
Saturday 21st Open – 11am to 3pm
Sunday 22nd – Closed
Monday 23rd Open – 10am to 5pm
Christmas Eve Open – 10am to 3pm
Christmas Day and Boxing Day – Closed
Friday 27th Open – 11am to 3pm
Saturday 28th Open -11am to 3pm
The Visitor Centre, Shop and Café will then be closed until Monday 3rd February
We have picked up a few awards during the short journey of Kilchoman and we are proud to be awarded another two in The Spirits Masters 2013. The competition draws in entries from around the world and is a blind tasting which allows the whisky to be judged purely on the nose and taste. The 100% Islay excelled by picking up a Gold and Machir Bay a Silver medal!
Hopefully many more to come in the future…
New Conisby warehouse is complete… we just need to fill it now!!
We finally finished the construction of the new Conisby warehouse at the beginning of October and have been juggling moving casks with increased production and bottling. Nonetheless we have made good progress and have now moved approximately 3,000 casks into the Conisby warehouse. Casks will be stored using the traditional dunnage warehousing method widely accepted to be the best for balanced and even maturation. When full the warehouse will hold over 10,000 casks. We look forward to showing Kilchoman fans around soon!
