Kilkerran Work In Progress

Kilkerran is the name given to the single malt whisky made at the Glengyle distillery in Campbeltown. The original Glengyle distillery was founded by William Mitchell in 1872 but lay dormant from 1925 until 2004, when the distillery reopened after an extensive refurbishment by new owners Springbank, whose head honcho Hedley Wright is descended from William Mitchell. 

Kilkerran is a small operation run by Springbank’s staff and less than 100,000 litres are produced each year, of which around 20% is very heavily-peated spirit. The first official bottling of Kilkerran appeared in 2007, with various Work in Progress editions and single cask bottlings charting the evolution of the Kilkerran spirit. The core range now consists of Kilkerran 12-year-old, an 8-year-old Cask Strength edition and the 16-year-old, which first appeared in 2020.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.