Allt-a-Bhainne 28 Years Old 1996 (Phil & Simon Thompson)

Distilled in 1996 and bottled by Phil & Simon Thompson in 2024, this is a 28 Years Old Allt-a-Bhainne at 49.1% ABV from Oloroso sherry maturation. The release is one of 196 bottles from the Thompson brothers, founders of the Dornoch Distillery in Sutherland and a long running indie bottling operation focused on terroir driven small batch single casks.

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.

Oloroso sherry maturation drives the spirit through rancio chemistry, where slow polyphenol and aldehyde oxidation during prior sherry contact generates the dried fruit, leathery and nutty register typical of long sherry contact. Against the lighter Allt-a-Bhainne distillate the sherry contribution leads. Twenty eight years in Oloroso pushes the rancio chemistry into its fullest expression, with polyphenol oxidation and oak sugar Maillard products driving the deepest dried fruit, leathery and nutty register the cask interaction can develop.