Tasting Date: 2021-05-25
Region: Scotch Whisky – Speyside
Type: Single Malt
Age Statement: 22 Years
Size: 750ml
ABV: 46% ABV
Cask Type: Aged in ex-bourbon barrels and the finished for a minimum of six months in Oloroso Sherry casks
Distiller: Unknown
Location: Unknown – Scotland Speyside region
Bottler: Unknown – Bottled for Alexander Murray & Co. Ltd.
Purchase Location: Costco
Purchase Date: 2020
Cost: Approximately $100.00
Tasting Notes From The Costco Australia Website:
… with aromas of orange marmalade and dried fruit. It delivers a bold Sherry finish.
Costco Canada and Costco USA do not have descriptions of this product on their websites.
Colour: Deeply golden
TransparentSmoke Review: Costco’s Kirkland Speyside Single Malt Aged 22 Years origins is a mystery the internet is talking about. This whisky has spent 22 long years stuck in a barrel of some unnamed distillery before it got here. The bottling company Alexander Murray & Co. Ltd. out of Calabasas, California put this together for Costco’s house brand Kirkland Signature and they have been very tight lipped about where the whisky might have been sourced.
We can do a little internet digging and start to try and figure it out to join in the fun. First off, for a whisky to be called a scotch whisky, it must be created and aged in Scotland. So there you go, we have already eliminated 93.86% of the world as the source of this whisky. The label says it is a Speyside single malt so that means it must have been created and stored in the Speyside region of Scotland. Speyside is home to 50 distilleries, the most distilleries of any region of Scotland. The distilleries in Speyside make about 50% of all the Scotch sold world wide. So we know that this Kirkland whisky has to be from one of them.
Steve Lipp the President of Alexander Murray & Co. Ltd. has said in the past that the largest Speyside distilleries his company has sourced barrels from have been Glenrothes, Tomintoul, Clynelish, and Glen Ord. So now all we need to do it taste a 22 year old whisky from each of those four distilleries and we should be easily able to figure out where Alexander Murray found this whisky.
So when you are done purchasing a few thousand dollars worth of whisky, could you come back and tell me what you think about how they compare to this $100 bottle. In the mean time, I’m going to make a guess like everyone else on the internet, and tell you that I see huge similarities between this dram and Glenrothes 12 Year. I could be convinced that this whisky is a Glenrothes 22 year old whisky, that they just didn’t think made the cut to be a real Glenrothes. The dramatic sherry finishing also helps to hide it’s source, but also makes this dram a wonder of its own. Interesting side note: Cameron Johnston, Alexander Murray Marketing Manager indicates that the Kirkland 20 Year, 22 Year, and 23 Year single malt Scotch whiskies were all drawn from different distilleries.
Delicious marmalade and musty old books fill the nose and as I dig in, I can find tobacco and leather. The nose lets you know that this isn’t some spring chicken. It is deep and complex to the point where aromas are over lapping and melting together, merging with one another. The Kirkland Speyside Single Malt Aged 22 Years becomes all about the sherry on the palate, it leaves the thought of dark dried fruits and Christmas cake. It is especially thick and the mouth feel is glorious. The 46% ABV leaves the tingle of a burn on the edges of my tongue and washes across my chest with a very satisfying finish of oak and …
Writing reviews is all about finding the words to describe a smell or a flavour so you can imagine what I feel while I am experiencing a dram. The flavour on the very end of this dram leaves me with a very specific memory, that maybe you too can relate to. I’m 11 years old, I just pitched the first 4 innings of little league and have been sent out to right field to, well, to not do much at all. As I am out there, I get bored and start to chew on the dangling leather laces of my ball glove, like I have a hundred times before. That flavour of old moist leather, that is what is on the edges of my tongue at the end of this dram. It’s not unpleasant, it’s just a very specific flavour to find in whisky.
Our Score: 87/100
Bottles on Hand: 
