Ardmore 26 Year Old 1994 Cask #10889 (Gordon & MacPhail)

A 26 year old single cask Ardmore released by Gordon & MacPhail in 2021 under the Connoisseurs Choice Cask Strength banner. The 1994 vintage sits inside the long Allied Distillers period that ran from 1976 through to the 2005 Pernod and Fortune Brands carve up of Allied Domecq, and the bottling reflects G&M's central role as the keeper of long aged Ardmore through the decades when the distillery sent nearly all spirit into Teacher's Highland Cream. 222 bottles for the Netherlands.

Filled at 63.5% into a single ex Bourbon refill American oak cask in 1994, the spirit matured in dunnage at Kennethmont for twenty six years. The wash stills ran on direct coal firing throughout, producing the heavier oily texture that defines pre 2001 Ardmore. Bottled at natural cask strength of 50.1% with no chill filtration applied.

Long refill Bourbon maturation lets the spirit's structural details show through. Oak lactone gives coconut and resinous pine, vanillin and syringaldehyde build a baked custard and light caramel register. The 1994 coal era distillate carries furfurals and melanoidins from direct flame distillation that read as toasted oat and pastry crust over time. Apple and pear esters carried by ethyl hexanoate and ethyl octanoate sit prominently at the centre, with the inland peat reading as heather smoke, leaf mulch and earthy phenolic at integrated intensity. A long lactic edge from the 54 to 55 hour fermentation closes the finish with a malted creamy depth.