Ardnamurchan AD/07.21:05

Bottled in July 2021 as the fifth batch of that month, AD/07.21:05 is an Ardnamurchan core release at 46.8% ABV from ex Bourbon and Oloroso casks. The distillery filled 19,998 bottles for the European market.

Concerto barley is milled into a copper topped semi lauter mash tun, fermented 72 to 120 hours in seven stainless steel washbacks on a single strain distiller's yeast, and double distilled through wash and spirit stills with reflux boil balls to a new make of 74 to 76% ABV. The release draws on both peated and unpeated production runs from the distillery's split regime. Spirit was filled at 63.5% and matured on site in dunnage warehousing at Glenbeg, where cool humid coastal conditions slow extraction relative to inland rack warehouses.

Ex Bourbon American oak supplies vanillin and oak lactones, framing the vanilla and fresh fruit listed in the profile. The Oloroso fraction adds the chocolate and dried fruit character through rancio chemistry, where slow oxidation of polyphenols and aldehydes during years of cask interaction generates Maillard reaction products absent in unsherried whisky. Honey notes reflect the same Maillard interaction with hemicellulose sugars from toasted oak. The peated phenols (guaiacol, syringol, 4 methylguaiacol from St Fergus Highland peat at 30 to 35 ppm) carry from the peated portion as a structural backbone behind the malt extract and citric brightness.