Auchentoshan Individual Cask Bottling 16 Years Old 1988

Bottled by Auchentoshan as part of the Individual Cask Bottling range from cask 4445 of 1988 vintage stock, with 156 bottles drawn at high cask strength of 58.9% for global distribution. The Individual Cask Bottling programme was the distillery's first dedicated single cask range, presenting cask by cask releases from the long matured archive at Dalmuir at natural strength.

Distilled in 1988 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.

Sixteen years in temperate Lowland maturation drove measured 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 58.9% across sixteen years indicates a tight cask with minimal evaporative loss, and continued ester transformation layers concentrated fruit over the spirit's signature citrus and almond core.