Arran 11 Years Old 1996 (Authentic Collection)

William Cadenhead Ltd. was established in Aberdeen in 1842 and is widely recognised as the oldest independent bottler in Scotland. The company has been owned by J. & A. Mitchell of Springbank distillery in Campbeltown since 1972, when George Christie's bankruptcy of the original family business led to the sale. The Authentic Collection is the flagship Cadenhead's cask strength range, bottled at natural cask strength with no chill filtration and no added colour, and the lineage that defined the modern independent single cask format. This Arran 11 Year Old draws on 1996 distilled spirit from the distillery's second full production year.

Spirit was distilled at Lochranza in 1996 and matured eleven years in a single cask before being shipped to Campbeltown for bottling by Cadenhead's. The cask wood is consistent with the Authentic Collection template of refill or first fill Bourbon hogsheads. Bottled at natural cask strength without chill filtration and without added colour.

Authentic Collection cask strength bottlings preserve the full integrated character of the individual cask, including the natural ABV that decades of evaporative cask losses produce. At eleven years old the Arran new make signature remains very visible, with the Bourbon cask supplying vanillin and the developing whisky lactone profile underneath. The 1996 vintage captures the second year of Lochranza's commercial production, sitting in the documentary inventory of early Arran releases.