— Single Cask · Bottled at Cask Strength —

Cask No. 047The Slow Year, 1996

Twenty-nine years in a single first-fill Oloroso butt, drawn down on the morning of the autumn equinox. Two hundred and twelve bottles. No more.

29Years matured

54.6%Cask strength ABV

212Bottles · 70 cl

℘

Oakhollow

29YEARS · 1996

CASK No. 047 · OLOROSO BUTT
54.6% VOL · 70 CL

— The Tasting Notes · Cask 047 —

Four quiet hours
in a glass.

"As patient and self-possessed a single cask as Speyside has produced this decade. The kind of dram you sit with, not the kind you finish."

— I —

Nose

Old leather, cherry preserve, polished walnut, a thread of dried orange peel. Faint smoke from a long-cold hearth.

— II —

Palate

Christmas cake. Toasted hazelnut. A slow heat that opens onto figs in syrup, then into something darker — espresso, bitter cocoa.

— III —

Finish

Long. Resinous. Spiced oak that resolves slowly into baked stone fruit and a final, gentle cigar leaf. The room remembers it.

— IV —

Best with

An empty room, a Glencairn, twelve drops of soft water, and forty minutes you do not intend to give to anything else.

— A history · since 1843 —

One distillery.
Six generations.

Oakhollow was founded in the spring of 1843 by Andrew McKellar, on a fold of land where two burns met above Carron in Speyside. Andrew had a copper still he had built himself, a long lease on a peat moss, and a stubborn idea about how unhurried whisky ought to be.

One hundred and eighty-three years later, six generations of the family have run the same two stills, drawn from the same spring, and matured the spirit in the same warehouses by the river. The barley has been local since the beginning. The yeast has been ours since 1881. The water has been ours since the earth.

We do not chase awards. We do not chase scale. We bottle when the cask is ready, and not a season earlier.

— Eleanora McKellar, sixth-generation distillerMaster Distiller · since 2014

— The Single Cask Programme · Spring 2026 —

Six quiet casks,
drawn this season.

Each cask drawn in person and bottled within forty-eight hours, undiluted, unfiltered, at full natural strength. When they are gone, they do not return.

047

The Slow Year, 199629 years · Oloroso butt · cask strength

Distilled05 March 1996

Bottled22 September 2025

Outturn212 bottles

£74070 cl · 54.6%

052

Carron Drift, 200223 years · refill bourbon hogshead

Distilled14 November 2002

Bottled04 February 2026

Outturn248 bottles

£48070 cl · 51.2%

059

The Quiet North, 200817 years · first-fill PX hogshead

Distilled21 June 2008

Bottled10 March 2026

Outturn284 bottles

£32570 cl · 56.4%

064

Coillie Beg, 201015 years · virgin Mongolian oak

Distilled08 August 2010

Bottled14 March 2026

Outturn262 bottles

£29570 cl · 58.8%

071

The Last Peat, 201213 years · refill bourbon · lightly peated

Distilled30 January 2012

Bottled22 April 2026

Outturn302 bottles

£24070 cl · 53.7%

— As awarded by the world's spirits judges —

2025

97 / 100Whisky Advocate

2024

Double GoldSan Francisco WSC

2024

Distillery of the YearIcons of Whisky · Scotland

2023

Best Single CaskWorld Whiskies Awards

2023

96 / 100Jim Murray's Whisky Bible

— The Estate · open by appointment —

Walk the cooperage.
Draw your own dram.

The Oakhollow estate sits on three hundred acres above the Spey, and we open it by appointment to a small number of guests each season. The visit lasts a slow afternoon, ends in the Master's office, and includes a draw from a cask that has not yet been bottled.

The Estate TourWed — Sat · 14:00
3 hours · £180 pp

Master's Cask VisitFri only · 11:00
5 hours · £450 pp

AddressOakhollow Distillery
Carron, Speyside AB38 7QP

Reservations+44 (0)1340 00 00 00
estate@oakhollow.scot

Reserve a visit →