Ardnamurchan 5 Years Old 2015 Warehouse Release

Distilled in 2015 and bottled in 2020 as part of the Ardnamurchan Warehouse Release programme, this is a 5 Years Old single cask at 59.3% ABV from Oloroso sherry maturation. The expression was released as an event exclusive in the same year as the inaugural Ardnamurchan single malt and represents one of the earliest single cask bottlings from the Glenbeg distillery.

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 Oloroso sherry cask and matured on site at Glenbeg in dunnage warehousing for five years.

Oloroso sherry maturation drives the spirit through rancio chemistry, where slow polyphenol and aldehyde oxidation during the sherry's prior cask life generates the dried fruit, leathery and nutty register characteristic of long sherry contact. Maillard reaction products from hemicellulose oak sugars add chocolate and toasted depth. At five years the cask interaction is in its more assertive phase, with the sherry foreground prominent over the still developing distillate character. 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.