Kilchoman Cask Offer

by **CanadianThistle** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 7:55 pm

Hello All,

Any opinions on the new Kilchoman distillery or more specifically on their cask offers?

by **lbacha** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 8:21 pm

It's Small, and in the middle of nowhere, which is quite a statement considering it is on Islay.

Len

by **Lawrence** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 1:04 am

I've tasted the new spirit (I have a smaple bottle on my desk 3/4 full. The new spirit is excellent, very smokey and oily and with water it opens up to reveal more smoke. It's very good for new make and heavily peated.

My Club is in the process of buying a cask.

Lawrence

by **CanadianThistle** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 4:50 pm

Good Day All,

My thanks to those who've replied to my posting re: Kilchoman cask offer.
Hey Lawrence, is your club acquiring the fresh fill barrel or the refill?

Cheers,
Al from Winnipeg (aka CanadianThistle)

by **Lawrence** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 11:35 pm

Hi Al, we're making the choice of the fresh barrel, we have several other casks and I thought this would be a good choice.

Lawrence

by **kildalton** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 12:10 am

Hi Lawrence, if you plan to bottle it in the next future I'd relly appreciate if You might take in consideration the chance to sell me a couple of bottles...

Many Thanks.

by **Lawrence** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 6:14 pm

That's a long way away, we're just buying the cask now but a decade from now when I've done my 100,000 post remind me and we'll make it happen.

by **Ailsacraig** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:24 pm

Hi Guys,
I'm lucky enough to have a cask of Kilchoman and recently recieved a sample from my refill bourbon. 6 months old !! and it is exceptional.
Very peaty but fruity,estery and sweet all at the same time. It has done so much in cask from what was excellent new make if i did not know better
I would say it could be 4-5 years old. Yes development will slow down. But I can't wait so I'm drinking this sample right now!! Hats off to Distillery manager Malcolm Rennie for producing such a quality spirit and to Anthony Wills for making this new distillery possible. It's also a great place to visit.
My advice. If you can get your hands on a cask (difficult) buy it!!!!!
You can view Dr Jim Swan's tasting notes on Kilchoman website.I think miniatures of new make were mentioned.
It only reinforces my belief that younger whiskies from 4-5yrs on should'nt
be overlooked.

Cheers

by **Di Blasi** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:38 pm

Great first post Ailsacraig, and welcome to the forum! Great to read about your cask and Kilchoman being a new malt to look very forward to and await with much anticipation!!

by **Jan** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 10:05 pm

Sounds great, Ailsacraig. Welcome from me also

by **vitara7** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:56 am

sounds like an excellent cask you have there, i myself am looking at popping over to the distillery to visit early next year, so may be tempted to buy one while im there...

by **Mustardhead** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 2:07 am

I looked at the cask offer but aside from one significant inaccuracy in the offer there is a notable omission: is there to be a fee for bottling and labelling? Maybe I'll make the effort to ask all the right questions in January.

by **Ailsacraig** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 7:28 pm

Yes there will be a charge for bottling and labelling although i don't know exactly what form this will be in. I better find officially myself !!

by **vitara7** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 10:15 pm

if you look on the bruichladdich web site you can find the fees they charge for bottling a cask and what the current duties are on the bottling as well.

i know that bruichladdich did or maybe still does a deal where they will bottle your cask and pay all duties on it for you and even send the bottles from your cask for you, as long as you give them 2/3rds of the cask your bottling.... so i think fees may be a wee bit.

by **Spirit of Islay** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 1:04 am

Bruichladdich charge £30 per case (12 bottles) for bottling plus £30 Admin fee . Can't see any prices on Kilchoman about there charges but it appears you can now buy minis of new make on line (along with other stuff) .

by **vitara7** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 1:15 am

yeh the £30 for 12 bottles, thats just for the bottling though, as soon as the cask comes out of bond its due taxes on the alcohol.

by **Spirit of Islay** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 1:32 am

vitara7 wrote:yeh the £30 for 12 bottles, thats just for the bottling though, as soon as the cask comes out of bond its due taxes on the alcohol.

just saying the bottling cost cos the duty Calculation gets tricky and has been covered else where !
I also seem to remember that at Kilchoman you've got to use the distillery bottle and label , so no designing your own label or humping the cask to some other bottler like what you can do with Bruichladdich casks .
Mind you it's nice to put on the label "Distilled , Matured and Bottled at xxxxxxxxx Distillery , Islay , Scotland " !
Merry Christmas
Gordon

by **Deactivated Member** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 1:43 am

Gordon, of course duty will vary according to volume and strength. But you've done this, so perhaps you can give us a ballpark figure. How does the duty compare to the original cost of the cask? Is the administrative fee for the entire bottling (i.e. one time only)? Are there any other costs prospective buyers should know about? What about transpotation to your home base? Of course, you live in the UK--getting bottles overseas would be something else again. I imagine the US Customs Service would raise its institutional eyebrow at anyone trying to import 200+ bottles.

by **Spirit of Islay** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 1:55 pm

Hi Mr TH ,
I thought i'd posted the breakdown of costs elsewhere on this rorum but on a search couldn't find it , so if i have i apologise , here they are ....
The Original Cost of Purchase = £195 (32 litres of Port Charlotte at about 72% ABV)
Administration Fee =£30 (to cover C&E paperwork etc ).
Bottling Cost (£30 per case x3.25 cases [1 case = 12 bottles]) = £97.50
Duty (which is £19.56 duty per litre of pure Alcohol) on 39 bottles [Number of bottles x size of bottle x ABV] 39 x 0.7 x 61.4%=16.76L/A X £19.56 = £327.83
Vat = £80.87 (on everything bar the original cost if i remember rightly !)
Total = £731.20
So if we then divide this by the 39 bottles , we get a cost per bottle of £18.75 !
but now there's an additional factor to add on to the cost , the "Jim Murray" Factor , so going off the price rise in the OMC Ardbeg 1975 after he praised it each bottle must be worth at least Ooh.....£500 now......... :lol:

I didn't include the cost of the labels in this price as i done them on my printer but i had prices ranging from 0.5 Euros each for high quality Glossy ones (not self adhesive) to just over £100 for a roll of 1000 self adhesive ones (http://www.selfadhesivelabels.com , again quite high quality). Actually quite a lot of printers are not interested in low volume runs .

I had a case sent over to me for Christmas 2005 seeing i couldn't pick them up at the time of bottling

and i think that cost me £15 , but the rest i picked up from the distillery at Easter . A friend of mine from America (Washington state) is on the verge of getting his Bloodtub bottled so it could turn out interesting to see how he gets it home and what the customs do . The same lad had an unfortunate incident with a courier company , he was shipping several bottles (not just 1 or 2 !) of the Plowed Port Ellen within the states ( from the importers in San fransisco to where he lives i think ) and they decided to destroy the lot for the good of the country !!!!! He was not a happy man !

I must say it's one of the best things i've ever done , there's nothing like having your own bottling , there's only one thing to do now ...own your own distillery !!!!! :lol:

hope that helps
Slainte
Gordon

by **Deactivated Member** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 6:25 pm

Thanks, Gordon--I'm sure you did cover it before, but I'm trying to help you get to your Gold Membership. :wink:

The ultimate cost per bottle seems reasonable, but the gross sum is a lot to swallow (so to speak)--and you only had a bloodtub. Of course, cask owners are often a part of a partnership, which helps to break up the cost. Still, transportation of 250 or 300 bottles will present a greater challenge than that of 39. Anyway, it's worth knowing that the up-front cost of the cask will only be about a third, or less, of the total cost.

Is your friend near Seattle? Ron and I would be very happy to help him drink his stuff....

by **Spirit of Islay** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 8:38 pm

I've got two shares in other casks and when we done the original working out (which was actually pretty close on the bloodtub ) , we thought the initial costs would be a quarter of the total cost .
I think it'll take me a little more while to get my gold membership and i'll never catch up to you thats one thing for sure !!!!

Slainte
Gordon

by **Di Blasi** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 8:54 pm

Well Gordon, if anything, "Joined: 14 Dec 2002" is quite impressive!!

by **Spirit of Islay** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 11:17 pm

The worst thing Jonathan is that i joined 5 years ago today (under the name Caskstrength ) , then i rejoined 5 days later ! Must have lost the details during a rather drunken Christmas / New Year Period , well thats my excuse and i'm sticking to it !!!!!! At least the second time lasted nearly a year........More Bunny XVIII Vicar ? :lol:

Slainte
Gordon

by **Ailsacraig** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 4:04 pm

Hi guys,

Found out thet the bottling/ labeling costs for Kilchoman will be around £3.50 per bottle. seems pretty reasonable compared to Bruichladdich !

Cheers.

by **Spirit of Islay** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 6:16 pm

Ailsacraig wrote:
Found out thet the bottling/ labeling costs for Kilchoman will be around £3.50 per bottle. seems pretty reasonable compared to Bruichladdich !

Laddie is only £2.50 a bottle so seems dear to me....... (unless my maths is failing me 12 bottles @£30 is £2.50 a bottle.....)

by **Ailsacraig** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 5:06 pm

Sorry, I thought you said there was also £30 admin fee. I'd also assume it would be on a much smaller, thus probably more expensive scale. I'll have to find out exactly what the costs do & don't include.

by **Spirit of Islay** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 11:59 pm

There is a £30 Admin fee but thats for the C&E paperwork (and £30 isn't too bad after some of the tales i've been hearing about a certain cask offer from a few years ago !). That's not a bottling cost IMO , Bottle, Capsule , Label and packaging are .
Laddie are quite open about their fees /costs etc , what you can and can't do (Cask/label wise ) , i know it may be a long way off but they should post some estimates of costs on the Kilchoman site so potential customers have some idea .
The things that put me of buying a cask of Kilchoman (and it's not that i think the whisky will be bad , the NM is one of the most drinkable i've ever tried ) are:-
You can't move the cask to be bottled elsewhere if you don't agree with the fees.
You can't use a personalised label (to me it gives you that something little extra special about your bottling).
I don't think a barrel of Kilchoman is worth the £200 premium above a barrel of Bruichladdich or Bladnoch . But that's just my opinion.....

Kilchoman have a good man in Malcolm Rennie , lots of experience at Ardbeg and from a good distilling family background , John (his dad ) was at Bunnahabhain for many years and from the re-opening until his retirement was at The Laddie in the warehouses , we had many a good chat about maturation . Going of the NM i tried Malcolm has got it spot on , wonder what his old man thinks ?

Slainte
Gordon

by **Ailsacraig** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 12:50 am

I think the premium price reflects the rarity of the product, and the fact that demand is so high, probably vindicates this. I'm told there is a considerable waiting list. Supply and demand I suppose.
I'm happy to pay it, but I agree not everyone would justify the cost.
You're right, an indication of bottling costs and conditions should be made available for potential customers information. The website is very limited !!
I'm pretty sure that you are allowed your own name label on each bottle.

I've met Malcolm and John who both worked together at Bruichladdich for a few years before Malcolm moved on to Ardbeg when it re-opened. I think John was at Bruichladdich long before it re-opened, something like 25 yrs maybe. I know my cask of Kilchoman is in safe hands with Malcolm.
Just a wee aside, Kilchoman - Ardbeg similarities ? Not a bad thing.

Cheers

by **Spirit of Islay** » Sat Jan 20, 2007 4:03 pm

Ailsacraig wrote:I'm pretty sure that you are allowed your own name label on each bottle.

This is one thing they do state on the site
"when mature it will be bottled using Kilchoman’s packaging. A slip label -
‘Specially Matured and Bottled for……………….’ can be added to the bottles."

By the sounds of it a wee label either at the top or bottom of the distillery label .
Still not the same as your own label..... :wink:

I'm just waiting to see what happens when a few friends start bottling their Springbank casks , i've never heard mention of what their costs are !
Slainte !