Auchroisk 25 Years Old 1991 Cask #1604 – 7479 (Claxton’s)

Bottled by Claxton's in 2016 as a 25 year old single cask release, drawn from cask 1604-7479 of 1991 vintage Auchroisk with 263 bottles distributed to the German market at cask strength of 51.2%. Claxton's is a family run independent bottler from East Yorkshire founded by Charlie and Matthew Claxton in 2014, with releases focused on full strength single casks.

Distilled in 1991 at the Mulben distillery built by Justerini & Brooks in 1974, the wash was made from 100% unpeated malted barley with soft Dorie's Well water and fermented for around 53 hours in stainless steel washbacks. Auchroisk runs the spirit through four wash and four spirit stills with constricted lyne arms, encouraging high reflux that returns heavier compounds back to the pot. Shell and tube condensers give further copper contact, stripping sulphur compounds, with the spirit collected at around 70% ABV and filled into a single ex-Bourbon American oak cask.

A quarter century in temperate Speyside warehousing 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 51.2% across 25 years indicates a moderately tight cask with steady evaporative loss, and tertiary stage ester transformation layers polished fruit over the spirit's signature light, ester forward profile.