Kingsbarns Single Malt Review

Hi everyone,

Kingsbarns is a new distillery located near St. Andrews in Fife. They are using local barley and the distillery has seen heavy investment from the Wemyss family.

They’ve just released their first readily available whisky at the weekend and I was lucky enough to get to try it. I’m attempting to keep my accolade of having tried a whisky from every distillery in Scotland, which seems pretty impossible with all the new ones (plus Roseilse), but still, I like to try and keep up if I can.

 

Kingsbarns Single Malt 46%

Colour: Light Straw

Body: Light

Nose: Essentially the New Make Spirit... Light and malty, very little complexity.

Taste: Soft but, yes, the New Make again and little else. No complexity at all, malt, maybe lemon, some ginger spice.

Finish: Short/Medium length. Ginger.

Weak first release that only tastes of unmatured malt spirit. I’m a little stuck with what to score it though… Does it have any off notes? No. Should it get a lower score for not tasting of whisky? Perhaps. In the end, I have given low scores to whiskies like Balcones and Jameson for having bad or off flavours, but at least those have flavours.

35/100

Thanks for reading!

Scotch Review #730

Whisky Network Review #868

Network Average: 75.1

Best Score: 94

Worst Score: 12

0-49 Terrible

50-59 Bad

60-64 Just About OK

65-69 Ok to Good

70-74 Good

75-79 Very Good

80-84 Excellent

85-89 Superb

90+ Magnificent

Full Disclosure Disclaimer: I currently work as a Brand Ambassador for Penderyn Distillery. The views expressed here are purely my own and do not reflect the views of Penderyn Distillery or The Welsh Whisky Company. I try to maintain as much objectivity as I can but feel free to take my reviews with as big a pinch of salt as you like. Furthermore, my rating scale is NOT based on a Parker type wine scoring scale or a school/college/university % or A-F grade score. You can find more on my scoring here. I apologise for any seemly low or 'bad' scores given with my system and I am sorry I can't say only nice things. Please keep in mind that I am ethically compromised and I am unable to produce 100% unbiased reviews.

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