Bunnahabhain 5 Years Old 2019 Cask #360038 (Dram Charaidean)

Dram Charaidean is the bottling name used by a small group of friends releasing very limited single-cask whiskies. The Scots Gaelic name translates loosely as 'a dram of friends', and the releases reflect that side-project scale: tiny outturns, no website, distribution mostly through specialist retailers across mainland Europe. This Bunnahabhain is a 5 year old single cask drawn from cask 360038, a refill hogshead previously used in sherry production. Bottled at 62.5% natural strength.

The cask is a refill rather than first-fill, meaning the wood has held spirit at least once before this Bunnahabhain fill. Refill sherry hogsheads in the indie market are predominantly Oloroso-seasoned; Oloroso is by far the most common sherry type used to season casks for Scotch maturation, and refill hogsheads are among the workhorse formats of the Scotch industry. The previous fill will have stripped the most active wood-extractive compounds out of the cask, so a refill delivers a more restrained sherry signature than a first-fill, letting the underlying distillate character lead. The 250-litre hogshead format sits between a barrel and a butt, with a moderate wood-to-spirit ratio.

The 62.5% ABV after only five years suggests the cask spent its life in a cool dunnage warehouse with low evaporation, holding most of the spirit weight that went in at fill. At this age and strength, Bunnahabhain leads with the distillate: oily, mineral spring-water salinity from the Margadale Burn, light maritime brine, and the soft cereal sweetness from the long-fermented wash. The refill cask supplies a quiet sherry frame underneath, adding light walnut and dried-fruit warmth without overwriting the young spirit's character. Single cask, natural colour, non-chill-filtered.