Auchroisk 13 Years Old 2006 Cask #804082 (Alistair Walker Whisky Company)

Bottled by Alistair Walker Whisky Company in 2019 as a 13 year old single cask release, drawn from cask 804082 of 2006 vintage Auchroisk with 273 bottles distributed to the European market at high cask strength of 58.3%. Alistair Walker is the eponymous independent bottling project of the former managing director of BenRiach, Glendronach, and Glenglassaugh, founded in 2017.

Distilled in 2006 at the Mulben distillery built by Justerini & Brooks in 1974, the wash was made from 100% unpeated malted barley with soft Dorie's Well water and fermented for around 53 hours in stainless steel washbacks. Auchroisk runs the spirit through four wash and four spirit stills with constricted lyne arms, encouraging high reflux that returns heavier compounds back to the pot. Shell and tube condensers give further copper contact, stripping sulphur compounds, with the spirit collected at around 70% ABV and filled into a single ex-Bourbon American oak cask.

Thirteen years in temperate Speyside warehousing 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 58.3% across thirteen years indicates a tight cask with slow evaporative loss, and continued ester transformation layers polished fruit over the spirit's signature light, ester forward profile.