Glencadam 15 Year
Founded in 1825, next to Brechin distillery (closed permanently in 1983), Glencadam has changed hands many times over the past almost two hundred years. Angus Dundee (who also owns Tomintoul) is the current owner and the distillery has been in production since 2003. The Glencadam 15 Year is part of a single malt range from 10 to 21 years, with the remaining portions used in blends such as Ballantine’s. The water, fed by the Barry Burn, is known for being soft. The distillery’s output is a relatively low 1.4 million liters per year. The name “Glencadam” comes from the area known as “The Tenements of Caldhame,” which were grounds given to the town by the crown for food production located near the distillery.
Port Charlotte Islay Barley 2008
Bruichladdich has been pushing the sense of locality and terroir with their NAS offerings lately, and this Port Charlotte is no different, made with barley exclusively from the island of Islay, something the Peat Project we tried a few years ago didn’t claim, and a variant of the Scottish barley used in the Classic Laddie we recently had. The grain was harvested in 2008 from the farms at Coull, Kynagarry, Island, Rockside, Starchmill & Sunderland, then distilled that December before being aged on the shores of Loch Indaal. You’d strain to find a more local dram.
Kilchoman 100% Islay
Still barely over a decade old and thus not quite ready to release aged statements, Kilchoman has used their youth to explore variations on their spirit, often in very creative expressions. One of the rising trends over the past several years has been a focus on terroir. The 100% Islay (3rd Edition) is a dram where the entirety of the process is done on Islay. The barley is grown there, malted there, distilled, matured and bottled there. It’s bottled at a higher alcohol strength but the peat level is lowered compared to their other releases. That is not a common occurrence in today’s world. First launched in 2010, the bottle in this review is from 2012.