BenRiach 10 Year Old Curiositas

By Barry Bradford on October 7, 2014 • ( 1 Comment )

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!