Arran Quarter Cask

This bottling of The Bothy continues the format established when the expression was added to the permanent Arran core range in autumn 2019. Originally launched in October 2015 as a 12,000 bottle limited edition, demand drove The Bothy to permanent range status. The current ABV and cask combination has been standardised across post 2019 batches to maintain consistency, although small batch variation persists naturally given the vatting of multiple casks per release.

Spirit is matured initially for around seven years in first fill ex Bourbon barrels of standard ASB size. The spirit is then transferred into 125 litre quarter casks made of fresh American oak for a further two years of secondary maturation. The smaller cask format approximately doubles the surface area to volume ratio, accelerating both extraction and evaporative loss. Bottled at 56.2% without chill filtration and without added colour.

The accelerated extraction phase in the quarter cask drives rapid leaching of vanillin and whisky lactones from new American oak, alongside the toasted sugar fraction from hemicellulose breakdown. The smaller cask also produces higher proportional evaporative loss, concentrating the original Bourbon matured esters while overlaying the fresh wood derived spice and tannic structure. The result is the layered intensity that quarter cask finishing was originally developed to produce in younger spirit. Flavour profile: citric, fresh fruit, vanilla, honey, dried fruit, hay like.