Edradour Straight from the Cask 10 Years Old 2010

A 10 year old Edradour, a distillery bottling, from 2010, cask 167, at 57.1%, 897 bottles in all. Edradour is a Highland single malt from the tiny farm distillery at Pitlochry, long called Scotland's smallest. Under Signatory the range has grown to a wide run of sherry and wine cask bottlings.

It was distilled slowly in the old farm stillhouse on Ben Vrackie water, for a full, oily make of dried fruit and chocolate. It was matured in an Oloroso cask, the wood working slowly into the rich malt. By the integrating teens congeners fade and esters build, the rich, oily spirit growing creamier. Years in oak round the spirit, the dried fruit and chocolate deepening over the oily core. It once supplied blends such as House of Lords and King's Ransom. The full bodied spirit shows the cask clearly, the sherry and oak to the fore. A small distillery and a hands on approach shape every cask by hand.

At a hearty 57.1% it carries real weight. Dried fruit, fig and a creamy vanilla, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. A baked apple and a gentle spice lift it. Dried fruit, chocolate and a soft oak see out a long finish. This is Edradour, one of Scotland's smallest distilleries.