BenRiach 10 Years Old 2007 Single Cask 8737

By Barry Bradford on August 30, 2018 • ( Leave a comment )

BenRiach 10 Years Old 2007 Cask #8737 (58.9%, OB, Batch 15 Moscatel HH, 326 Bottles, 2018)

Category: Speyside single malt scotch whisky
Origin: BenRiach distillery
Bottling: Brown-Forman, BenRiach Single Cask Series Batch 15
ABV: 58.9%
Cost: £75

What they say

BenRiach holds some of the most experimental casks in Speyside, making it uniquely placed to offer a multi-faceted range of casks in both unpeated and Highland peated styles. Each year, Master Blender Rachel Barrie selects a number of distinct casks which celebrate the distillery’s creative distilling and maturation heritage. Batch 15 includes 17 casks: 11 unpeated and 6 Highland peated – an eclectic mix including port pipes, moscatel hogsheads, sauternes barriques, rum barrels and virgin oak. Each bottle is filled exclusively from one of these individual casks.

Official tasting notes:

Colour: Golden peach.
Nose: Almond and brandy cake served with luscious poached peaches, icing sugar and cappuccino cream.
Taste: Peach and apple brandy develop mid-palate into sweet candy floss grape, leaving cocoa into the smooth, memorable finish.

What I say

From BenRiach’s Batch 15 of their single cask series, this was distilled at Benriach distillery in 2007 and matured in an ex-Moscatel Hogshead for 10 years before bottling at Cask Strength of 59.7% ABV.

Thanks go to Spey: Progressive Communications and The BenRiach distillery for the official sample.

My tasting notes:

Appearance: Amber gold (8/20), slow-forming, fine tears leave ultra-fine legs.
Nose: Almond milk and peach blossom, Pears soap, honeycomb and beeswax candles, caffe-latte toffee or fudge, vanilla and butterscotch, doughy bread or brioche and an almond milk latte – perhaps?
Taste: Medium-bodied. Fruity and woody, apple, pear, peach all caramelised – like toffee apples, a slightly sharp bite hints more of fresh citrus juice, acidic green grapes, blood oranges and lime and maybe a little mango all with fresh stem ginger, sweet throughout with milky and malty ovaltine and toffee.
Finish: Medium, sweet butterscotch, creamy coffee, vanilla halted by oak wood.

Overall

Another delicious example of BenRiach pairing with sweet wine maturation. This one seems a little more varied, with floral, waxy and coffee notes adding to the extra fruitiness the wine cask brings to the spirit. A little less sweet and more woody than the Sauternes (Cask #5807) matured expression.