Auchentoshan 24 Years Old 1998 JD’s Personal Choice No. 6 (Sansibar)

Bottled by Sansibar in 2022 as a 24 year old release in the JD's Personal Choice series, marked No. 6 and drawn from 1998 vintage Auchentoshan with 151 bottles distributed to the European market at cask strength of 48.9%. Sansibar is a German independent bottler based on the island of Sylt, with the JD's Personal Choice series presenting casks selected by a single curator.

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 ex Bourbon American oak.

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. Settling at 48.9% reflects steady evaporative loss across the long maturation, with tertiary stage ester transformation integrating fruit and oak into a polished single cask profile.