Auchroisk 15 Years Old 2008 Cask #1101 (The Whisky Cellar)

Bottled by The Whisky Cellar in 2023 as a 15 year old single cask release, drawn from cask 1101 of 2008 vintage Auchroisk with 230 bottles distributed to the European market at cask strength of 54.3%. The Whisky Cellar is an Edinburgh based independent bottler founded by Keith Bonnington, focused on hand selected single cask releases at natural strength.

Distilled in 2008 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.

Fifteen 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 54.3% across fifteen years indicates a moderately tight cask with steady evaporative loss, and continued ester transformation layers polished fruit over the spirit's signature light, ester forward profile.