Whisky Review: Auchentoshan 1999 Cadenhead’s Small Batch 19 Year Old

Elliott
2 min readNov 24, 2022

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A little bit of an oddity, it’s nicely matured and delicious. Time to try more Auchentoshan!

Bottle front and back

Auchentoshan 1999 Cadenhead’s Small Batch 19 Year Old / 52.4% ABV

Tasted neat

This Auchentoshan Lowland single malt was distilled in 1999 and bottled in 2018, 19 years old. It is cask strength, non-chill-filtered, and natural colour. Just 258 bottles from an interesting twist of both a Bourbon Hogshead and a Château Lafite french wine cask!

The tasting notes from Cadenhead’s read:

Nose: Red cola, beef stock cubes and strawberries.
Palate: Red fruits, banana skin. Slightly waxy.
Finish: Cherries with tannins from the wine coming through. Also some menthol notes.
  • Color: tawny (1.4)
  • Nose: craft cola, cranberry, ginger, pizza sauce, and juniper
  • Taste: waxy, chewy red wine; brighter fruit notes of strawberry and banana, maple syrup
  • Finish: long, vanilla ice cream with a maraschino cherry and sprig of mint

I’m actually a little bit surprised with Cadenhead’s, the bottle notes on this one are spot on!

This is interesting, and probably a one off because of that expensive full-term wine cask. I’ll have to try some ex-bourbon releases in the future to figure out if this is a fluke, or I really like Auchentoshan.

Rating: 7/10

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Elliott

Personal interests in literature, SF, and whisky/whiskey/scotch, Software Engineer by Trade