The founder of Islay’s Kilchoman Distillery has expressed hope for a recovery of fortunes in the scotch whisky industry as the company celebrates its 20th anniversary.
Anthony Wills established Kilchoman on Islay’s west coast in 2005, one of the first entrepreneurs to venture back into single malt production following the industry’s sharp downturn in the 1980s.
Today, the ‘barley-to-bottle’ distillery produces 650,000 litres a year on a 24/7 operation, employs 40 full-time staff, and works with more than 50 distributors globally. Beyond its own success, it has helped reinvigorate Islay’s whisky scene as the first new distillery to be built on the island in more than 120 years.
While reaching the 20-year milestone is worthy of celebration, it comes amid a sea of challenges for the wider scotch industry as sales stutter and job losses loom.
Speaking ahead of an event to mark the distillery’s anniversary, Anthony acknowledged the difficult conditions for Scottish whiskymakers, noting that Kilchoman itself has shelved a planned capital investment to increase production capacity.
However, he believes the storm will pass. “We in the industry know it will get back on track,” he said. “For us now, it is about keeping our head down.”
The History of Kilchoman
Anthony is no stranger to adversity in his whisky journey. After starting his career in the wine trade, he began working with whisky in 1995, buying single casks to bottle for the ever-growing market of single malt enthusiasts. Based on the trajectory he was observing, investing in a distillery felt smart — but in the early 2000s, few others thought so.
“We tried to raise the money for a small distillery when no one else was building or investing in distilleries,” he said. “Everyone thought I was bloody mad.”
Whatever the prevailing sentiment, Anthony was committed. “I didn’t have a plan B. To be honest, I put everything into this business,” he said. “But… I am incentivised because I love what I’m doing.”
Despite the risks of embarking on a distillery construction project, others supported the Kilchoman cause. Anthony is full of praise for the distillery’s private investors, who he says “were having to dip into their pockets quite a lot” for the first few years. Their faith in the project has been rewarded — the business has turned a profit every year since 2010.
As an independent bottler moving into production, Anthony was ahead of the curve. The past 10 years have seen many others follow suit: Adelphi established its Ardnamurchan Distillery in 2014; A. D. Rattray opened the Clydeside Distillery in Glasgow in 2017; Hunter Laing opened its Islay distillery, Ardnahoe, in 2018; and after reopening Benromach in 1998, Gordon & MacPhail opened a brand-new distillery, The Cairn, in 2022.
“Everyone knows that having your own liquid, you make more money,” Anthony said, adding that the experience of independent bottlers gives them greater resilience in “tough times”.
For The Love of Islay
Islay was Anthony’s first choice for distillery location (his second was Campbeltown, a region he is thrilled to see attracting new investment). Kathy’s family has lived on the island since the 1930s, and its reputation in whisky provided a stable platform on which to establish a new brand.
As an independent distillery, Kilchoman was a good fit for Islay too. At the time, all its distilleries (aside from the recently reincarnated Bruichladdich) were owned by multinationals. For distributors that were unable to secure contracts with these companies, Kilchoman presented a chance to get a foothold on the island. “So many of them wanted an Islay single malt for their portfolio and they didn’t have one,” Anthony observed.
While admitting that running a business on the island can be a “nightmare” due to logistics concerns and the availability of housing for staff, Anthony acknowledged the importance of its whisky pedigree: “It is different from other peated whiskies. Islay has a reputation for the style of whisky which people seem to have fallen in love with because it is so distinctive.”
On the advice of scotch stalwart Charlie MacLean, Anthony brought in another industry titan, the late Dr Jim Swan, to help design Kilchoman’s production set-up. “Jim Swan was my inspiration and held my hand through the whole process,” he explained. “Without his input, we would never have succeeded.”
The distillery’s initial production capacity was 100,000 litres per year, filling just seven casks a week. To fulfil Anthony’s desire for a spirit that could be released at a relatively young age, Kilchoman’s pot stills are small and long-necked for increased copper contact, and the spirit cut is kept high.
Anthony said the most valuable piece of advice Jim offered was to mature in “good-quality, expensive wood”. He has adhered steadfastly to this policy — Kilchoman’s cask suppliers include renowned sherry producer Bodegas José y Miguel Martín and bourbon giant Buffalo Trace.
Kilchoman’s Whiskies
Kilchoman released its first single malt in September 2009. Its range has since evolved to encompass beloved regular bottlings and buzz-worthy limited editions that celebrate its island home.
The flagship expression is Machir Bay, first released in 2012 and named after a stunning stretch of coastline on the fringe of Kilchoman’s estate. Devised by Anthony and then-distillery manager John MacLellan, it’s a 46% lightly peated single malt primarily matured in bourbon casks. Anthony explained that the proportion of sherry-matured spirit has recently been increased (it’s now around 10%) to make the whisky richer.
Golden in colour, it has a rich nose of banana, honey-nut cereal and fresh strawberries, a softly sweet palate balancing vanilla with grassy notes, citrus and soft smoke, and a big cereal finish.
Machir Bay is joined in the core range by Sanaig, which features a high proportion of whisky matured in oloroso sherry casks, and Batch Strength, which combines re-charred red wine casks (a Jim Swan signature) with bourbon and sherry and is bottled at 57% abv. There’s also crowd favourite Loch Gorm, named for the loch neighbouring the distillery, an annual release fully matured in oloroso sherry casks.
The 100% Islay expressions, distilled from estate-grown barley, are perhaps the truest taste of Kilchoman.
The latest in the range is the 15th edition, made with malt peated to 20ppm and fully bourbon cask matured. It has aromas of vanilla essence, soft florals, and aromatic peat, an incredibly soft palate with toasted cereals, tinned pear and mineralic hints, and lingering orchard fruits and earthy smoke on the finish.
The pinnacle of Kilchoman’s range to date is the 20th Anniversary Cask Series. Launched in May 2025, it comprises four whiskies bottled from 20 casks that were judged to be superlative examples of Kilchoman’s spirit:
- A 14-year-old matured in ex-bourbon casks and bottled at 51.2% abv (1,120 bottles)
- A 14-year-old “100% Islay” expression, matured in ex-oloroso casks and bottled at 55% abv (3,145 bottles)
- A 15-year-old matured in ex-sherry casks and bottled at 52.7% abv (3,153 bottles)
- An 18-year-old matured in ex-bourbon casks and bottled at 46% abv (1,209 bottles)
In further celebration of its anniversary, the distillery has launched a prize draw to win a bottle of 20-year-old Kilchoman drawn from its very first cask, which was filled on December 14, 2005. More information on how to enter the draw can be found at kilchomandistillery.com.
The Future
Despite industry headwinds, Kilchoman is still planning for growth. A new racked warehouse has recently opened on site with capacity for 7,168 bourbon barrels and hogsheads, powered by solar panels on the roof. (Kilchoman can now generate up to 100kW through its solar infrastructure — enough to power the whole distillery.)
In 2024, it held its first sale of private casks, something it had previously been unable to offer due to stock constraints. The ex-bourbon casks were offered exclusively to Kilchoman Club members and allocated via ballot.
It is adaptations such as these that Anthony feels make the difference for smaller distilleries in straitened times. While they can’t rely on economies of scale, they can respond and pivot in ways that larger producers cannot.
Kilchoman’s field-to-bottle philosophy offers further stability, with greater self-reliance shielding the distillery from the worst effects of supply chain fluctuations. A watershed moment came in 2015 when the Wills family had the opportunity to buy the farm on which their distillery is located. With this purchase, they attained complete oversight of their process “from barley to bottle”, as was Anthony’s original vision.
The farm stretches to some 3,000 acres, with around 200 used to cultivate barley. After starting with Concerto, the farm now primarily grows Laureate. Barley is planted in spring rather than winter to minimise damage from local animals (particularly red deer and the now-resident population of greylag geese) and the inclement Hebridean weather.
The shorter growing season and suboptimal climate for cereal crops result in lower yields, but general manager Islay Heads said it’s a worthwhile sacrifice for a spirit they can “take pride” in. “It is not all about yield — it is about the spirit that we are getting off the stills and what we are putting into casks,” he explained.
Since 2011, Anthony and Kathy have been joined in business by their three sons, George, James, and Peter. They head up the distillery’s sales and marketing operations, Anthony oversees the whisky making alongside production manager Robin Bignal, and Kathy leads the visitor centre team.
While it wasn’t intended as a family enterprise, Anthony is proud that it has become one. “My sons would not have joined the business if they didn’t think it was a good idea,” he said wryly. “I am really enjoying having a business that has been a relative success.”
Read the full article at Kilchoman Founder Shares His Lessons as Islay Distillery Marks 20 Years
