Kilkerran Work in Progress 2

This is quite a solid malt and so mature for it's age. I gave it slightly more points than you, though. Just managed to get my hands on the WIP7 Bourbon which is a cask strength. Can't wait to try it.

@Mikey09, thanks for your review. It is especially nice when we are able to get reviews of newer or less common whiskies and distilleries, so that we can have some idea of what they are doing there.

OK, this one is a maltly malt. Is it as briney as its neighbor Springbank? Also, on peat/smoke levels, is this closest to Hazelburn, Springbank, or Longrow? (Sounds like Springbank; pretty clearly not Longrow)

Long age in whisky is very nice, but younger age whisky done well is so much better than older age whisky done badly. A lot of the previous "old age is better" malarkey was to convince the stupid public that ruined old Scotches were worth their high price tags. I have tasted some of those lousy old Scottish malts, and I am glad that I never paid for a bottle of any of them. There is plenty of decent younger product available, fortunately.

@Victor: Thanks for your comment. The fact that this is an unusual expression was one of the reasons I wrote the review. It's not really like any of the other Campbeltown whiskies I know. It's less briny and peaty than the Springbank, but if you want to compare it to other Campbeltown whiskies, I guess that's the closest. It's spicier and, for a lack of a better expression, fresher, though. This is one of the first drams that convinced me old is not always best. @MaltActivist: let me know what your WIP7 tasted like. I'm very curious, as we can't get every expression over here. I guess I don't score that high overall. Maybe I'm still waiting for the one...

I do wish they'd put age statements on this series, though, despite the pass they're getting in this discussion.

It's not that I think Glengyle is giving us a raw deal with the NAS labeling (or however you want to phrase the usual NAS criticism). Rather, it's just confusing as-is. They don't clearly label them as "WIP 1/2/3/etc." to begin with, and then if you do know which edition you have, you then need to know how old #1 was (five years) to know the age of the current one.

Maybe we're just supposed to enjoy it without worrying about the age? I get that argument in the general endless NAS debates, but in the case the point of the series is to watch Kilkerran go from very young to mature. The lack of information makes that pretty hard to actually do.

OK, I started a general Kilkerran thread a few weeks ago, so I should just continue my thoughts over there. Thanks for the review of #2, Mikey09! This one and the new CS version are the ones I'd most like to get my hands on.

connosr.com/wall/discussion/…

I know what you mean @OIJas , I had to google search the tube to know what WIP it was. There's certainly a lot of debate around about the NAS-bottles, and I am still not too happy about it, but this was a nice surprise. And because it was such a nice surprise I didn't mind it taking a little bit more of an effort to find out. I can imagine that it makes it a little bit more difficult to get them all in the right order, though.

I didn't know about your thread, maybe I will contribute when I taste other Kilkerrans.

@Mikey09, it sounds like you already found a color decoder, but for future reference, the Diving for Pearls blogger has reviewed lots of these WIPs and he's usually good about reminding us which color is what:

thekrav.blogspot.com/search/label/Kilkerran