BenRiach 12 Years Old 2005 Cask #2682 (53.9%, OB, Batch 15, Peated/Port Pipe, 792 Bottles, 2018)

• Category: Speyside single malt scotch whisky
• Origin: BenRiach distillery
• Bottling: Brown-Forman, OB, BenRiach Single Cask Series Batch 15
• ABV: 53.9%
• Cost: £sold out

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:

• Appearance: Walnut ruby.
• Nose: Bramble and baked apple pie topped with burnt orange and redcurrant on gentian-infused pastry.
• Palate: Baked orange and redcurrant carried by walnut oil leaving liquorice, dark chocolate and tobacco leaf.

What I say

Sample provided by BenRiach and SpeyPR.

Distilled at BenRiach in 2005 using peated malted barley and matured in an ex Port pipe for over 12 years before bottling at cask stength 53.9% ABV.

My tasting notes:

• Appearance: Autumn bronze (15/20), medium tears and medium-fine legs.
• Nose: Sweet and earthen peat, dry, jammy fruits on toasted brown bread, malt loaf, cinnamon and pepper spice.
• Taste: Malty dried fruits, earthy, elderberry or blackcurrants, dark and jammy then dry and ashen, vanilla, oak wood and a touch of eucalyptus.
• Finish: Long, earthy, dry wood and peat smoke.

Overall

Perfectly balanced earthy Highland peat smoke and dark and jammy fruits.

Score 85/100

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