Kilchoman Coull Point

Found this one in the beautiful city of Maastricht for €55,- Its supposed to be very limited (unknown amount of bottles) travel retail edition, but the guy had some good connections judging by all the crazy bottles in the shop. He had one Coull Point and I took it immediately because I thought it would be a good introduction to the distillery. This is a mixture between 4 and 5 year old bourbon matured spirit, of which the 4 year old was finished for four weeks in an Oloroso cask.

Nose: A very fresh and delicate nose with marzipan, cookie dough, charred oak and fresh vanilla, sweet barley, ripe pears and chamomiles near the sea. Smoke and peat are always there but well integrated. After ten minutes in the glass some roasted coffeebeans too.

Palate: a light sunny arrival slowly developes into a bigger presence until it gets quite powerful. In the beginning I get the sweeter lighter notes from the nose. After fifteen seconds or so in the mouth it changes completely. It gets dark and stormy with salty peat, strange vegetal notes, cacao, wet smoke, ash, white pepper, bitter lime and waxy sulphur. I love that developement and it stays interesting for quite a while. So don't swallow too soon!

Finish: green vegetal peat, some vanilla, charred oak. You get that typical side-of-the-lip feeling the iodine peat lingers on for some time

A very active, young interesting thing with a character of its own and a lot of potential. I tasted it next to Ardbeg 10 and it while didnt really hold up in dirty motoroil peatbog murkyness, it certainly has a thing or two to say at this young age; it did'nt get blown away. This is a more delicate, but also powerful kind of Islay and I recommend it to all peatheads. Yes the Kilchomans are expensive, but very well made so they please in different ways than only power and peat. I also like their no nonsense approach and that they do almost everything theirselves from barley to bottle. Compared to the new make spirit the aging happened rapidly so I cant wait till their casks reach 10,12 or even 18 years.

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