Ardnamurchan 8 Years Old 2016 AD/10:16 Cask 944

Distilled in October 2016 as part of batch AD/10:16 and bottled in 2024 from single ex Bourbon cask 944, this is an 8 Years Old Ardnamurchan at 57.1% ABV. The expression was bottled without dilution for the Netherlands market as a single cask selection.

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 eight 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. Eight years of dunnage maturation develops the ex Bourbon contribution beyond the primary extract phase, with extended Maillard chemistry alongside the higher esters from long fermentation that the cask strength bottling preserves. 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.