Auchentoshan 18 Years Old 1997 Cask #2909 (Blackadder)

Bottled by Blackadder in 2015 as an 18 year old single cask release, drawn from cask 2909 of 1997 vintage Auchentoshan with 247 bottles distributed to the German market at cask strength of 52.3%. Blackadder is an independent bottler founded by Robin Tucek in 1995, known for the Raw Cask range that presents single casks with minimal intervention and visible cask debris.

Distilled in 1997 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.

Eighteen years in temperate Lowland maturation drove measured 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 52.3% across nearly two decades indicates a moderately tight cask with steady evaporative loss, and continued ester transformation layers polished fruit over the lighter triple distilled spirit base.