Bunnahabhain 20 Years Old 2004 Cask #800188 (Signatory)

This Bunnahabhain comes from a single Oloroso cask filled in 2004 and bottled twenty years later by Signatory Vintage as part of the bottler's Cask Strength Collection, this particular release commissioned by La Maison du Whisky in Paris. Cask 800188 yielded the bottling at 61% natural strength, a high ABV for twenty years in a sherry butt and indicative of cool warehouse storage with measured evaporation across the maturation period.

Spirit from 2004 was distilled at Bunnahabhain shortly after the 2003 sale from Edrington to Burn Stewart, the deal that included the Black Bottle blend and £10 million for the distillery and brand. Stock from this transition period reflects the early Burn Stewart years where production was being ramped back up after the Edrington lull, and casks filled at this point have provided some of the more interesting twenty-year-old bottlings reaching market in 2024 and 2025.

At 20 years in a single Oloroso butt, the spirit and wood are deep into integrated maturation. Walnut and dried-fig weight has concentrated through long oxidative interaction with the wine-seasoned wood; leather and polished-oak markers run alongside; the cask's structure has fully fused with the Bunnahabhain distillate's natural oiliness. The 61% strength carries the cask aromatics with intensity and rewards small additions of water for full release. Natural colour, non-chill-filtered, single cask.