Arran Private Cask – Miss Black 16 Years Old 1997

Arran's Private Cask programme allows individuals, businesses and organisations to purchase casks of new make spirit, mature them at Lochranza or Lagg warehouses, and bottle through recommended bottlers when ready. Per the programme rules, the Arran name itself cannot appear on the front label, meaning private cask bottlings use the cask owner's chosen name or label. Miss Black is one of those private label names applied to a 1997 vintage Oloroso cask that was bottled at sixteen years old in 2014 from cask 1997/820.

Spirit was distilled at Lochranza in 1997 and matured sixteen years in a single Oloroso seasoned cask. The cask carries reference 1997/820 in the Arran internal cask numbering system. Bottled at 51.6% in 2014 from an outturn of 231 bottles, without chill filtration and without added colour.

Sixteen years of Oloroso seasoned cask maturation produces deep extraction of the sherry residue: sotolon, furfural and the oxidised polyphenol fraction developed during the original Oloroso ageing under flor free conditions. The Arran citric and fresh fruit signature from the 1997 new make integrates with the dark sherry layer over the long maturation, producing the dried fig, dark chocolate and oxidised wood register characteristic of long aged Arran Oloroso single casks.