THE FALL OF ICARUS – Score: 3/10
Ambition is a fine thing in a whisky, right up until it flies too close to the sun. That thought kept coming back as this young Campbeltown malt slowly opened in the glass: plenty of wings, plenty of nerve, but not quite enough wax to hold the whole thing together.
Kilkerran is the single malt of the Glengyle distillery, a name that disappeared from Campbeltown in 1925, when the town’s once-mighty whisky industry was crumbling around it. It took Hedley Wright, chairman of J. & A. Mitchell — the family firm behind neighbouring Springbank — to bring the site back to life, and spirit flowed there again in 2004. Since the Glengyle name was already in use elsewhere, the whisky borrowed another: Kilkerran, from Ceann Loch Cille Chiarain, the old Gaelic name of the settlement that grew into Campbeltown. A proud lineage, and one that sets expectations high for this eight-year-old, batch #10.
The climb, however, is steep and the fall comes early. Wood takes the lead from the very first sip, dry and insistent, soon joined by a bitter note of roasted coffee and the tannic grip of old leather. Then the heat arrives: a flare of chilli, followed by a wave of black pepper that scorches rather than warms, flattening whatever nuance might have been hiding underneath.
Some will find character in that rugged, fiery austerity. Here the balance never really comes — the feathers melt, and the descent is swift. A dram to taste out of curiosity for a remarkable distillery story, rather than one to come back to.
