Ardmore 25 Year Old 1997 (The Whisky Agency)

A 25 year old single cask Ardmore released by The Whisky Agency in 2022, distilled in 1997 and bottled at 51.4% natural strength. Released as an event format bottling from Carsten Ehrlich's Hamburg operation, drawing from the long term Ardmore stock that the Agency has built across two decades. The 1997 vintage falls inside the late Allied Distillers period that fed nearly all Ardmore production into Teacher's Highland Cream, with single malt outturn restricted almost entirely to independent bottlers.

Distilled in 1997 from peated Aberdeenshire malt at the 12 to 14 ppm phenol level, the spirit was filled at 63.5% into a single ex Bourbon refill American oak cask and matured in dunnage at Kennethmont. The wash stills operated on direct coal firing throughout the distillation. Twenty five years brought the strength to 51.4%, with no chill filtration applied at bottling.

Refill Bourbon at this age frames distillery character without dominating. Cis whisky lactone gives soft coconut and pine, vanillin from oak lignin shows as light custard, syringaldehyde adds clove. Coal era furfurals from direct flame distillation read as toasted oat and brown sugar. Apple and pear esters from the Kerry yeast component sit at the centre, with inland peat reading as heather smoke and earthy phenolic at integrated intensity rather than dominant smoke.