Ardnamurchan 10 Years Old 2015 Private Cask

Distilled in 2015 and bottled in 2025 from a single private cask, this is a 10 Years Old Ardnamurchan at 58.7% ABV from ex Bourbon American oak maturation. Bottled without dilution for Poland as a private cask selection from the distillery's second year of production.

Production followed Ardnamurchan's standard regime. Concerto barley was milled into a copper topped semi lauter mash tun, fermented 72 to 120 hours on a single strain distiller's yeast, then double distilled through copper pot stills with reflux boil balls to a new make of 74 to 76% ABV. Spirit was filled at 63.5% into a single ex Bourbon American oak cask and matured on site at Glenbeg in dunnage warehousing for ten years.

Ex Bourbon American oak focuses cask contribution on vanillin and the cis isomer of whisky lactone from the toasted and charred staves, with hemicellulose oak sugars driving honey and vanilla through Maillard chemistry. The cleaner American oak palette suits Ardnamurchan's lighter new make and lets fermentation derived esters carry through without sherry darkness to mask them. A decade of maturation lets the primary cask extract phase give way to slower Maillard reaction products, with honey, toasted oak and developed lactone character extending beneath the citric and fresh fruit register of the spirit. Peated phenols (guaiacol, syringol, 4 methylguaiacol from St Fergus Highland peat at 30 to 35 ppm) from the peated portion of the split production integrate as smoke backbone.