Kilkerran is the name of the single malt whisky made at the Glengyle distillery in Campbeltown. Dormant since 1925, Glengyle was purchased in 2000 by J&A Mitchell, who of course are also the owners of Springbank distillery and Cadenhead’s. The distillery was completely refurbished and refitted, and production began again in 2004.

Glengyle’s single malt whisky is sold as Kilkerran because they do not own the Glengyle brand name. One of the distillery's previous owners, Bloch Brothers - who also owned Glen Scotia distillery in Campbeltown - tried to revive Glengyle in the 1950s.  After this project failed Bloch Brothers sold up to Hiram Walker, who sold Glen Scotia and Glengyle on again soon afterwards. 

While the Glengyle distillery buildings were repurposed as a shooting range and later as an agricultural feed store before being bought by J&A Mitchell, Glen Scotia distillery and the Glengyle brand name were eventually acquired by Loch Lomond Group, who bottle a blended malt under the Glen Gyle brand. 

Glengyle’s malted barley comes from Springbank, whose staff also operate the plant. The distillery is small, with just two stills - sourced from the defunct Ben Wyvis distillery at Invergordon - and a theoretical capacity of 750,000 litres per annum, although Glengyle does not operate full time. Fermentation is long, at a minimum of 72 hours, and the majority of the output is lightly peated although 20% of the runs are now heavily peated spirit.

Glengyle released a three-year-old Kilkerran single malt in 2007, followed by a series of Work in Progress bottlings matured in either sherry or bourbon wood which appeared annually from 2009. Kilkerran was an instant hit and retains an avid following of Campbeltown whisky fans.

These releases preceded the first official ongoing Kilkerran, a 12-year-old that was first released in 2016 and has since been joined in the core range by an 8-year-old cask strength, a no age statement Heavily Peated bottling (at over 80ppm) and a 16-year-old edition. Single cask bottlings of Kilkerran also appear from time to time.

Due to the limited nature of production at Glengyle, Kilkerran single malt whiskies are generally quite small batches which tend to sell out very quickly. Hopefully the proven popularity of Kilkerran’s whisky will enable the distillery to continue to increase production levels so that there’s more of Glengyle’s single malt to go round in future.