Allt-a-Bhainne 25 Years Old 1995 Ukrainian Whisky Connoisseurs Club (UD)

Distilled in 1995 and bottled in 2021 under the Ukrainian Whisky Connoisseurs Club's Choice imprint by UD Bottlers, this is a 25 Years Old Allt-a-Bhainne at 46.9% ABV from ex Bourbon maturation. The release is one of 122 bottles, selected for the Ukrainian whisky enthusiast community as a private club bottling.

Allt-a-Bhainne ferments malted barley for 48 to 50 hours on Mauri liquid yeast in closed stainless steel washbacks, then double distills through two copper wash stills and two copper spirit stills with steam heating and shell and tube condensers. The short Speyside ferment produces a clean malt forward spirit built as a blend filler for Chivas Regal, Passport and 100 Pipers. New make is reduced with Rowantree Burn water and tankered to Keith for cask filling and maturation, since the distillery holds no warehousing on site.

Ex Bourbon American oak frames cask contribution on vanillin and oak lactones from the toasted and charred staves, with Maillard chemistry from hemicellulose oak sugars driving honey and vanilla. The clean American oak palette suits Allt-a-Bhainne's lighter blend filler spirit. Twenty five years of ex Bourbon cask interaction with the lighter blend style spirit produces a fully developed mature profile, with vanillin, lactones and slower Maillard products building over time to define the character that the underlying distillate originally framed.