Oban 14 Years Old 200th Anniversary Edition

This 14 year old was bottled in 1994 to mark the distillery's bicentenary, two hundred years after John and Hugh Stevenson founded Oban in 1794. It is a celebratory dressing of the flagship 14 year old, the West Highland representative of Diageo's Classic Malts, from one of the smallest distilleries in Scotland.

The cask was soft ex-Bourbon American oak, the cask that has always defined the standard Oban. The spirit behind it is made the traditional way, slow distillation after a long fermentation through the compact pot stills, condensed in the wooden worm tub condensers whose heavy copper contact tempers the spirit into the light, fruity make the distillery is known for. Marking two centuries of continuous production, the bicentenary edition is a snapshot of the house style as it stood in the mid nineteen nineties, a collectable piece of the distillery's long history.

Bottled at 43%, it is the classic West Highlander in anniversary guise. Vanillin from the broken down lignin gives vanilla, the lactones in the wood add a coconut note, and the cask frames honey, orange peel and dried fig against a clear saline edge. A faint wisp of smoke carries a long, malty and faintly briny finish.