Arran 25 Years Old 1996 (Phil & Simon Thompson)

Phil and Simon Thompson are the Thompson Brothers, founders of Dornoch Distillery in the Highland village of Dornoch in Sutherland and proprietors of the well known Dornoch Castle Whisky Bar. The brothers built their reputation through bar curation and cask selection before establishing Dornoch Distillery in 2016 in a converted fire station within the grounds of Dornoch Castle Hotel. Their independent bottling programme has continued alongside the distillery's own production, with the family's cask selection expertise applied to releases like this Arran 25 Year Old from the 1996 vintage.

Spirit was distilled at Lochranza in 1996 and matured twenty five years in Oloroso casks before being selected by the Thompson Brothers for bottling. Bottled in 2021 at 49% without chill filtration and without added colour, with the 192 bottle outturn reflecting the working yield of the selection at twenty five years.

Twenty five years of Oloroso cask maturation produces deep integration of cask and spirit, with the underlying Arran spirit signature from the 1996 distillation year fully integrated with the long oxidative cask interaction. The slow oxidative development across more than two decades drives heavier aldehyde compound accumulation alongside developed cask compounds, producing the deep integrated profile characteristic of long aged Oloroso single casks at the upper end of typical commercial release ages.