Edradour SFTC – Sauternes Cask Matured 10 Years Old 2006

Edradour from the distillery, a 10 year old, from 2006, cask 325, at 59.8%, 387 bottles in all. Edradour is a Highland single malt from a 19th century farm distillery run by a handful of hands. A 2018 expansion added a second still house, the production still small and traditional.

Run through the small stills with their boil ball purifiers, for the rich, oily make Edradour is known for. It was matured in a Sauternes cask, the wood working slowly into the rich malt. In integration lactones (coconut) and vanillin (vanilla) knit with the malt, the nutty chocolate deepening. 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. The distillery sits in a pocket glen at Balnauld, in the hills above Pitlochry in Perthshire.

At a hearty 59.8% it carries real weight. Dried fruit, nut and a soft chocolate, with honeyed apricot and a candied citrus from the cask. The mouthfeel is thick and oily, the fruit on a creamy body. A rich finish ends on dried fruit and a soft oak. This is a rich, oily Highland single malt.