Auchentoshan 20 Years Old 2000 Cask #800041 (Signatory)

Bottled by Signatory Vintage in 2020 as a 20 year old single cask release, drawn from cask 800041 of 2000 vintage Auchentoshan with 163 bottles distributed to the Belgian market at cask strength of 56.9%. Signatory Vintage was founded in 1988 by Andrew Symington and is one of Scotland's leading independent bottlers, operating Edradour Distillery in Pitlochry alongside its bottling business.

Distilled in 2000 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.

Two decades 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 56.9% across two decades indicates a tight cask with slow evaporative loss, and tertiary stage ester transformation layers polished fruit over the lighter triple distilled spirit base.