Auchentoshan 24 Years Old 1998 (Phil & Simon Thompson)

Bottled by Phil & Simon Thompson in 2022 as a 24 year old release from 1998 vintage Auchentoshan, with 321 bottles distributed to the European market at cask strength of 52.6%. Phil & Simon Thompson are the Cumbrian brothers who run Dornoch Distillery and the Thompson Bros Distillers bottling label, with releases focused on single casks selected through their own buying programme.

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. Holding 52.6% across more than two decades indicates a tight cask with steady evaporative loss, and tertiary stage ester transformation layers polished fruit over the spirit's signature citrus and almond core.