Ardnamurchan 5 Years Old 2016 (The Whisky Exchange)

Bottled by The Whisky Exchange in 2022 from 2016 distilled spirit, this is a 5 Years Old Ardnamurchan at 53.1% ABV from a dual vatting of ex Bourbon and Oloroso casks. The expression was bottled for the European market under The Whisky Exchange's own selector imprint as one of the retailer's exclusive single malt releases.

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 vatting of ex Bourbon and Oloroso casks and matured on site at Glenbeg in dunnage warehousing for five years.

Ex Bourbon American oak supplies vanillin and oak lactones at the structural base, framing the brighter side of the profile. The Oloroso fraction adds rancio chemistry with dried fruit and leathery character through slow polyphenol oxidation. 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.