Edradour Ballechin 2009 Cask #348

A 12 year old Ballechin, a distillery bottling, from 2009, cask 348, at 58.1%, 957 bottles in all. Ballechin is Edradour's smoky single malt, peated to around fifty parts per million. Under Signatory the range has grown to a wide run of sherry and wine cask bottlings.

The spirit was drawn off the tiny stills and cooled in worm tubs, smoke over an oily spirit, building the rich, peated Ballechin style. Maturation came in an Oloroso cask, layered over the rich Edradour make. In integration lactones (coconut) and vanillin (vanilla) join the smoke, the dried fruit deepening beneath. Vanillin and oak lactones from the wood lend vanilla and coconut over the fruit. Years in oak round the spirit, the dried fruit and chocolate deepening over the oily core. It keeps the old ways, with an open cast iron mash tun, Oregon pine washbacks and worm tub condensers.

At its natural 58.1% it is rich and full bodied. Woodsmoke, oily malt and a dried fruit, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. Beneath the smoke run dried fruit, chocolate and a soft oil. Peat smoke, dried fruit and a soft oak see out a long finish. This is a rich, smoky malt from one of Scotland's smallest distilleries.