BenRiach 10 Year Old Curiositas (40%, OB, 2014)

• Category: Speyside single malt scotch whisky
• Origin: BenRiach Distillery
• Bottling: BenRiach Distillery Company Limited.
• ABV: 40%
• Cost: £37.33

What they say

Curiositas uses a heavily peated malted barley as the cereal varietal to produce a unique, fresh, peated expression.

This rare peated single malt, from the Heartland of Speyside, has wonderful overtones of peat reek, combined cleverly with a background of fruity, floral, heathery notes and an appealing presence of oak wood in the finish. Traditionalists believe that peated malts achieve optimum balance of peat-bittersweet and oak infusion after 10 years of maturation.

In fact peated BenRiach is a return to the original Speyside character and flavour of malts typical of the nineteenth century. Curiositas is a distinctive and welcome addition to the Speyside scene – this is a dram to be savoured with a dash of water.

Official tasting notes:

• NOSE An explosion of aromatic peat reek, with fragrant hints of honey, fruit and mellow oak.
• COLOUR Rich amber
• TASTE An avalanche of peat, followed by an extravagant and complex mix of fruit, heather, nuts, oak wood and spices.

What I say

Curiositas is a 10 year old, peated release from the BenRiach distillery in what they call the ‘classic Speyside style’.

My tasting notes:

• Appearance: Pale gold
• Nose: Peaty and sweet
• Taste: Icing sugar sweetness, malty cereal barley, sour mash/mashtun and earthy and heathery peat
• Finish: Long, slightly drying, sweet and a little sour/bitter peaty heather again

Overall

A distinct malt with great depth and a bittersweet balance. From the outset something tasted a little too sweet and floral with this peated whisky to convince us it was from Islay. Adam hit the nail on the head by finally declaring it a peated speysider!

Score 82/100

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