Auchentoshan 12 Years Old 2010 Cask #700429 (Brave New Spirits)

Bottled by Brave New Spirits in 2023 as a 12 year old single cask release, drawn from cask 700429 of 2010 vintage Auchentoshan with 197 bottles distributed to the German market at high cask strength of 58.6%. Brave New Spirits is a Scottish independent bottler founded in 2018, with focus on experimental cask selections and single cask natural strength bottlings.

Distilled in 2010 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 Marsala wine cask.

Twelve years in Marsala cask conditions drove distinctive secondary character into the lighter triple distilled base. The Sicilian fortified wine soaked staves bring oxidative aldehydes alongside concentrated sugars and glycerol body, contributing dried fig, raisin, and orange peel. Subtle gamma butyrolactone development gives soft sweet wood, with continued ester transformation at 58.6% integrating wine cask influence with the spirit's underlying citrus and almond core.