Auchroisk 14 Years Old 2007 Cask #805568 (James Eadie)

Bottled by James Eadie in 2021 as a 14 year old single cask release, drawn from cask 805568 of 2007 vintage Auchroisk with 298 bottles distributed to the Netherlands market at cask strength of 57.6%. James Eadie is an independent bottler founded by Rupert Patrick in 2014, reviving the historic blending name of James Eadie Ltd that dates back to 1854 in the Black Country.

Distilled in 2007 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.

Fourteen 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 57.6% across fourteen 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.