Auchroisk 2003-2015 - 11 Year Old - Creative Whisky Company - Exclusive Malts - Single Cask 6

Auchroisk is a large modern Speyside distillery founded by Justerini & Brooks, which was part of Grand Metropolitan by the time the distillery was completed in 1974. Grand Metropolitan merged with Guinness to become Diageo in 1997.

Unlike many similar distilleries from the same era, Auchroisk was never intended just for blending - Auchroisk’s malt whisky was officially bottled from the late 1970s and was sold as Singleton of Auchroisk from the mid-1980s until 2001, when Diageo introduced a Flora & Fauna 10-year-old. The Singleton brand was later repurposed without Auchroisk, but Diageo have released small batch limited edition Auchroisks for the Rare Malts and Special Release series. The Flora & Fauna edition remains Auchroisk’s only ongoing official bottling, but independent Auchroisk is abundant, with recent highlights from reliable bottlers including Gordon & MacPhail and the SMWS.

The Creative Whisky Company is an independent bottler created by husband and wife team Susan and David Stirk in late 2004. David Stirk had previously worked for both Whisky Magazine and Cadenhead’s and had picked up good contacts in the industry and experience in cask selection and bottling. 

The Creative Whisky Co. company bottled hundreds of malt and grain whiskies from 2005 onwards, the majority of which were single casks bottled at cask strength for the company’s Exclusive Malts series. These whiskies were very fairly priced at the time and remain good value at auction. The Stirks sold the business in 2018 to a private consortium, and no further bottlings have appeared at the time of writing in 2022.