Auchroisk 18 Years Old 1996 Cask #1974 (BB&R)

Bottled by Berry Bros & Rudd in 2014 as an 18 year old single cask release, drawn from cask 1974 of 1996 vintage Auchroisk and distributed to the Belgian market at natural strength of 50.9%. Berry Bros & Rudd is a London based fine wine and spirits merchant founded in 1698, with its independent bottling programme presenting single casks selected through its Scotch buying team.

Distilled in 1996 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.

Eighteen 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. Settling at 50.9% reflects steady evaporative loss across the long maturation, with continued ester transformation layering polished fruit over the spirit's signature light, ester forward profile.