WHISKY REVIEWS, NEWS, HISTORY & FOLKLORE
Back with a bang?
Things have been quiet on A Scot on Scotch recently. This blog has always been a passion project (rather than a job) and sometimes life gets in the way and the writing has to take a back seat. That’s been the case of late. I enjoyed a family holiday to Arran, a brilliant week in Islay for the October ‘24 Islay Whisky Academy Residential Diploma and in the middle of that my daughter turned 9 and a wee cocker spaniel puppy called Daisy arrived at our house and has been creating chaos ever since. Our other dog, 4-year-old Hamish doesn’t quite know what’s hit him.
Beyond the family stuff, things have been busy on the work front, too. For the last few months, I’ve been working with an old friend, John McGuire, to create Scottish Rogue, a business that will create new whisky experiences in my home city of Glasgow. We’re both passionate about Scotland and Scotch whisky and we want to share that with the people who visit our fine city. We’ll be doing distillery experiences, whisky tastings – both online and in-person – and pub crawls that take the form of walking tours, covering the history of Glasgow and its whisky connections, interspersed with drams at some great Glasgow pubs. There’s lots more to come but please feel free to take a look at the website. Any and all feedback is very welcome www.scottishrogue.co.uk. We’ll also be on all the socials so please do look out for Scottish Rogue and give us a wee follow, there will be lots of good content coming your way very soon.
Get on with it!
With those formalities out of the way, let’s get back to the whole point of this website – reviewing drams! There’s been plenty of excellent whisky released over the last month or so and I’ve tasted some crackers at festivals and through various distillery visits, but one I’ve been really looking forward to, is the new release from Kingsbarns.
The lovely people at Kingsbarns sent me over a wee sample of their new Distillery Reserve. This is a limited edition release (of 3000 bottles) and comes bottled at a cask strength of 58.2% abv. The spirit is apparently 8 years in age, though despite pointing out on their website that it is their “most mature whisky to date”, Kingsbarns have inexplicably decided against including an age statement on the label, which seems an odd choice. Nevertheless, I’m eager to see what a wee touch of age will bring to the Kingsbarns profile.
I found myself intrigued by Kingsbarns at quite an early stage. Initially, that was because of my love for the nearby town of St Andrews but also because of the involvement of Wemyss Malts, an independent bottler and blender who had been producing some good quality blended malts. The distillery’s origin story and that of Douglas Clement, the Golf caddy who came up with the idea and pushed to get it off the ground in the first place, added a whole new level of intrigue.
An impressive start…
I first visited Kingsbarns back in 2017, before there was any whisky available. I returned in 2022, on a day trip organised by the upstanding gentlemen of the Ayrshire Whisky Group and by then, the whisky was flowing. Generally speaking, I’ve been impressed with the standards of the spirit from this fledgling distillery. I like that they’ve stuck to their guns in terms of distillery character. This is a light, grassy malt, in the traditional lowland style (if there is such a thing) and they’ve tended to avoid using overactive oak that would smother its young, fresh, flavour profile.
The 2024 edition of the Distillery Reserve has been matured exclusively in ex-Oloroso Sherry casks and I can’t help but wonder if this will bring a departure from that spirit-led style, though a glance at my sample suggests the oloroso hasn’t been too thickly applied. There were six American Oak Sherry Butts used in the making of the dram and those larger casks certainly look to have played a role, with the reduction of liquid to wood contact helping to create a subtlety – in colour, at least. Will that same balance apply to flavour? Let’s find out.
Kingsbarns Distillery Reserve Review
The Kingsbarns Distillery Reserve 2024 is a no-age-statement whisky (though apparently 8 years old) and bottled at 58.2% abv.
Tasting notes: The nose is pleasingly balanced. The malty, grassy Kingsbarns character is present and correct but pairs nicely with the oloroso. There’s a big hit of toffee, toffee biscuits, especially. Slightly burnt toast. Walnuts. Raisins. Tobacco. Herbal – green and fresh. Some soft lemony citrus there, too. On the palate, it has a lovely buttery texture with rich, dried fruits and tobaco notes. At cask strength, there’s a wee touch of peppery spirit heat but that’s easily resolved with a drop of water. Picking up toffee biscuits again, along with the maltiness of the base spirit. There’s almost a buttered rum quality to the oloroso. Some subtle oak tannins in the finish and a slight dryness with an underlying sultana note. With a splash of water, a lovely honey came to the fore, with the oloroso toffee, oak tannins and herbal grassiness underneath.
Thoughts: Any fears I had about the oloroso casks overpowering the spirit, or leading Kingsbarns away from its established house style, have been thoroughly put to bed and this still feels very on-point for the brand. The oloroso certainly plays its part but it never gets ideas above its station and the spirit is allowed to breathe. The little oak tannin towards the back is something I don’t remember noticing in Kingsbarns before, so perhaps that will be a feature as we see it reach advanced age in the years ahead?
I found the Kingsbarns Distillery Reserve 2024 to be a thoroughly pleasant dram that successfully nailed the delicate balancing act between grassy, lowland spirit and rich oloroso cask. Maybe it won’t tickle the fancy of flavour chasers who seek out big, bold cask finishes but fans of lighter, spirit-led drams should find something to appreciate here.
Price: £75. It’s not the most accessible price point but is at least on par with the limited releases of other new distilleries.
For more on Kingsbarns Distillery visit here
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