Arran Private Cask 17 Years Old 1997

The cluster of 1996 1998 vintage seventeen year Private Cask bottlings released through the early to mid 2010s represents a particular working period for the Arran Private Cask programme, where casks filled during the distillery's earliest production years were reaching the maturation point at which cask owners chose to bottle. Cask 1997/474 was filled in 1997, the distillery's third full production year, with Oloroso seasoning that drove the integrated character of the seventeen year maturation.

Spirit was distilled at Lochranza in 1997 and matured seventeen years in a single Oloroso seasoned cask. Bottled in 2014 at 51.5% without chill filtration and without added colour, with the 300 bottle outturn reflecting the working yield of the single cask.

Seventeen years of Oloroso cask maturation produces deep extraction of the sherry compound layer, with sotolon, furfural and the oxidised polyphenol fraction from the original wine ageing well integrated with the underlying Arran spirit signature. The European oak substrate contributes its own lactone profile and tannic backbone, producing the dark sherry, dried fig and gentle drying spice register characteristic of long aged Arran Oloroso single casks.