Auchentoshan 24 Years Old 1998 Cask #AM166 (Asta Morris)

Bottled by Asta Morris in 2022 as a 24 year old single cask release, drawn from cask AM166 of 1998 vintage Auchentoshan and distributed to the Belgian market at cask strength of 54%. Asta Morris is a Belgian independent bottler founded by Bert Bruyneel, focused on selecting individual casks for small batch release under the AM cask numbering system.

Distilled in 1998 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.

Twenty four years in temperate Lowland maturation drove patient 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 54% across more than two decades indicates a tight cask with slow evaporative loss, and tertiary stage ester transformation layers polished fruit over the spirit's signature citrus and almond core.