Ardnamurchan 5 Years Old 2015 Cask Series 016 (North Star)

Bottled by North Star Spirits in 2021 as Cask Series 016, this is a 5 Years Old Ardnamurchan from 2015 distilled spirit at 52.5% ABV. The expression was matured in ex Bourbon American oak and bottled for Europe. Released a year after the inaugural Ardnamurchan single malt, among the earliest indie bottlings.

Production followed Ardnamurchan's standard regime. Concerto barley was milled into a copper topped semi lauter mash tun, fermented 72 to 120 hours on a single strain distiller's yeast, then double distilled through copper pot stills with reflux boil balls to a new make of 74 to 76% ABV. Spirit was filled at 63.5% into a single ex Bourbon American oak cask and matured on site at Glenbeg in dunnage warehousing for five years.

Ex Bourbon American oak focuses cask contribution on vanillin and the cis isomer of whisky lactone from the toasted and charred staves, with hemicellulose oak sugars driving honey and vanilla through Maillard chemistry. The cleaner American oak palette suits Ardnamurchan's lighter new make and lets fermentation derived esters carry through without sherry darkness to mask them. At five years the cask interaction is in its primary extract phase, with vanillin and oak lactones forward and fermentation esters preserved by high fill strength. Peated phenols (guaiacol, syringol, 4 methylguaiacol from St Fergus Highland peat at 30 to 35 ppm) from the peated portion of the split production integrate as smoke backbone.