Auchentoshan 24 Years Old 1991 Cask #2903 (Blackadder)

Bottled by Blackadder in 2015 as a 24 year old single cask release, drawn from cask 2903 of 1991 vintage Auchentoshan with 243 bottles distributed to the European market at cask strength of 55.8%. Blackadder is an independent bottler founded by Robin Tucek in 1995, known for releasing single casks with minimal intervention under the Raw Cask series, often leaving cask debris in the bottled spirit.

Distilled in 1991 from 100% unpeated malted barley with Loch Cochno water from the Kilpatrick Hills, the wash was fermented around 62 hours across Douglas fir and stainless steel washbacks before triple distillation. Auchentoshan runs every drop through three copper pot stills, with the intermediate and spirit stages collecting at around 81% ABV. The extra copper contact strips sulphur compounds and fusel oils while concentrating ethyl hexanoate, isoamyl acetate, and other light esters, giving a clean spirit base filled into a single ex Bourbon American oak cask.

Twenty four years in temperate Lowland maturation drove patient oak extraction. Vanillin from lignin breakdown gave vanilla, cis and trans oak lactones added coconut and sweet wood, and char layer interaction produced furfural with Maillard derived caramelised sugars. Holding 55.8% across more than two decades indicates a tight cask with slow evaporative loss, and tertiary stage ester transformation layers polished fruit over the spirit's signature citrus and almond core.