Kilchoman ImpEx Cask Evolution 03/2024 9 Year Old 100% Islay Single Cask Scotch Whisky

Kilchoman ImpEx Cask Evolution 03/2024 9 Year Old Single Cask Scotch Whisky is a cask-strength Islay single malt at 55.9% ABV (111.8 proof), 750mL — one single cask, 9 years old, drawn as just 229 bottles for the U.S. market. It is available to order online at Del Mesa Liquor, San Diego, CA.

Kilchoman, founded in 2005, was the first new distillery built on Islay in more than 120 years — a working farm distillery on the island's west coast. The ImpEx Cask Evolution series takes Kilchoman's heavily peated spirit (50 ppm, the same peat level as Ardbeg) and follows it through individual finishing casks. For 03/2024, the whisky spent 7 years in ex-bourbon barrels and then 2 years finishing in an ex-Sauternes wine cask, before being bottled at natural cask strength, non-chill filtered, with no added colour.

Sauternes — Bordeaux's great botrytised dessert wine — leaves a distinctive fingerprint on peated whisky. The nose is fragrant orange zest, ashy peat, and dried kelp, with tropical fruit and a white-grape, vanilla sweetness drifting in from the wine cask. The palate turns buttery: vanilla, lemon peel, stewed nectarine, and honey wrapped around earthy peat smoke. The finish is long — peat smoke, mixed fruit, and an oaky dryness that keeps it savoury. If you chase limited Scotch whisky and single-cask Islay, this is the shelf it lives on; see the full Kilchoman collection and more rare top-shelf bottles at Del Mesa Liquor.

Serving note: pour it neat and give it a few minutes in the glass; a few drops of water open up the Sauternes fruit through the smoke. A natural partner for oysters, smoked fish, or a salty blue cheese.

What is the Kilchoman ImpEx Cask Evolution series? A U.S.-exclusive single-cask series from importer ImpEx Beverages that tracks Kilchoman's 50 ppm spirit through individual finishing casks; each numbered release (this is 03/2024) is one cask, bottled at cask strength in tiny numbers — 229 bottles here.

Is this the same as Kilchoman's Sauternes Cask Matured release? No. The distillery's own Sauternes Cask Matured is a vatting fully matured in Sauternes casks; this ImpEx bottling is a single cask that spent 7 years in ex-bourbon wood and only its final 2 years in ex-Sauternes — a different balance of peat and wine fruit.

How peaty is it? The spirit is peated to 50 ppm, squarely in classic Islay territory — expect ashy peat smoke and maritime kelp woven through the sweet wine-cask fruit.

Is it chill-filtered or coloured? Neither: like all Kilchoman single casks, it is non-chill filtered with no added colour, bottled at its natural 55.9% cask strength.