Auchentoshan 11 Years Old 2014 Cask #DL 18377 (Old Particular)

Bottled by Douglas Laing in 2025 as an 11 year old single cask in the Old Particular range, drawn from cask DL 18377 of 2014 vintage Auchentoshan with 208 bottles distributed to the Netherlands market at cask strength of 55.5%. Old Particular is Douglas Laing's flagship single cask programme, presenting natural strength releases at non chill filtered, natural colour presentation.

Distilled in 2014 from 100% unpeated malted barley with Loch Cochno water from the Kilpatrick Hills, the wash was fermented around 62 hours across Douglas fir and stainless steel washbacks before triple distillation. Auchentoshan runs every drop through three copper pot stills, with the intermediate and spirit stages collecting at around 81% ABV. The extra copper contact strips sulphur compounds and fusel oils while concentrating ethyl hexanoate, isoamyl acetate, and other light esters, giving a clean spirit base filled into a single ex Bourbon American oak cask.

Eleven years in temperate Lowland maturation drove measured oak extraction. Vanillin from lignin breakdown gave vanilla, cis and trans oak lactones added coconut and sweet wood, and char layer interaction produced furfural with Maillard derived caramelised sugars. Holding 55.5% across eleven years indicates a moderately tight cask with steady evaporative loss, and continued ester transformation layers polished fruit over the lighter triple distilled spirit base.