Auchentoshan Distillery Cask 22 Years Old 2002

Bottled by Auchentoshan in 2024 as a Distillery Cask 22 year old single cask release, drawn from cask 10747 of 2002 vintage stock at cask strength of 56.2% and distributed to the German market. The Distillery Cask series presents hand picked single casks direct from the warehouses at Dalmuir, available at the distillery shop or through select export markets at natural strength.

Distilled in 2002 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 Oloroso sherry cask.

Twenty two years in European oak Oloroso conditions drove deep sherry character into the lighter triple distilled base. Ellagitannins and gallic acid from the European oak build dried walnut and grip, while oxidative aldehydes including acetaldehyde and syringaldehyde develop nutty, leathery rancio. Fermentation derived sotolon adds dried fig and curry leaf, with glycerol concentration lending body, integrated with the spirit's underlying citrus and almond core at 56.2%.