Ardnamurchan AD/ Sherry Cask Release 2024

Released in 2024 as a Sherry Cask Release from Ardnamurchan, this expression is bottled at 50% ABV from a dual sherry cask vatting of Pedro Ximenez and Oloroso. The distillery filled 21,000 bottles in this large run, making it one of the more widely distributed sherry expressions from the Glenbeg distillery.

Both peated and unpeated production runs from the distillery's split regime feed this release. Concerto barley is milled into a copper topped semi lauter mash tun, fermented 72 to 120 hours in seven stainless steel washbacks on a single strain distiller's yeast, then double distilled through wash and spirit stills with reflux boil balls to a new make of 74 to 76% ABV. Spirit was filled at 63.5% and matured on site at Glenbeg in dunnage warehousing.

Dual sherry maturation contrasts two registers of rancio chemistry. The Oloroso fraction drives oxidative dried fruit and leathery notes through slow polyphenol and aldehyde oxidation during extended oxygen exposure in the sherry's prior cask life. The Pedro Ximenez component contributes a sweeter, denser register with raisin, fig and tobacco notes from sotolon and related lactones, alongside residual PX sugars carried in the wood. Peated phenols (guaiacol, syringol, 4 methylguaiacol from St Fergus Highland peat at 30 to 35 ppm) from the peated portion integrate as smoke that anchors the sherry darkness, with honey and dried fruit building from Maillard interaction between oak hemicellulose sugars and the spirit.