Four bottles, four cask stories, the same spirit. It is the easiest way to understand what a cask actually does to whisky, because everything else is held constant and only the wood changes.
The Expert's Description
Ardnamurchan AD Miniature 2024 is a gift set of four Highland Single Malt Scotch Whiskies in 5 cl format, bottled between 46.8% and 50%. The set gathers the distillery’s core expression and three cask variants, and all four are neither chill filtered nor coloured.
The first bottle is AD/, the house standard with 65% bourbon casks and 35% sherry casks. The second is the sherry cask expression, the third the rum cask, and the fourth a single cask Sauternes. Between them they cover the whole span from dry bourbon wood to sweet wine cask.
Ardnamurchan sits at Glenbeg on the westernmost mainland peninsula in Scotland and has been distilling since July 2014. The distillery makes both peated and unpeated malt, and both styles go into the releases.
Tasting Notes
Nose
AD/ opens with orchard fruit, beach pebbles and eucalyptus. The sherry cask gives Murray mint and smoked bacon. The rum cask brings salted cashews and vanilla extract, and the Sauternes offers nectarines and sweet pastry.
Palate
A common thread runs across all four: tobacco leaves, salt water and a touch of marzipan from the spirit itself. On top sit the contributions of the wood, sticky spare ribs from the sherry, coastal breeze from the rum and rich wax from the Sauternes cask.
Finish
Different from bottle to bottle, but over the same saline maritime floor. That shared denominator is exactly what the set makes it possible to hear.
Specifications
Name: Ardnamurchan AD Miniature 2024 Gift Set Single Malt Whisky 4x5 cl
Distillery: Ardnamurchan
Region/Country: Highland, Scotland
Type: Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky
ABV: 46.8-50%
Size: 4x5 CL
Cask type: Bourbon, sherry, rum and Sauternes
Non-chill filtered: Yes
Natural colour: Yes
Edition: Miniature Set 2024
Flavour Profile
Fruity · Maritime · Smoky · Sweet · Spiced · Waxy
Did You Know?
Ardnamurchan sits so far west that the distillery is closer to Northern Ireland than to Edinburgh as the crow flies. The peninsula is the westernmost part of the Scottish mainland, and the warehouses stand a few hundred metres from the water in Glenmore Bay, looking out towards the island of Mull.
See our full range of Ardnamurchan
Listen to our podcast: