Tastes

Can a whisky taste of smoked mackerel? That, plus cold tea, sour grapes, dark chocolate and pepper were the flavors of my sample. The nose is soft, meaty peat with a faint hint of sherry; the finish leaned to the sour notes. Not something I’d revisit, though I appear to be in a minority for not enjoying this more.

Creamy, spicy and more smoky than you’d expect for a barely-peated Islay. A satisfying dram.

Nose: I am leaning over a vat of liquid raisins and oranges. Palate: Oh dear, I’ve fallen it. These raisins and oranges taste very rich, yet somehow more dry than sweet. Finish: Melted chocolate wrapped in marmalade. Long and elegant. I appear to be drowning, but there are worse ways to go. This was one of two single casks that I sampled at a recent BenRiach/GlenDronach tasting event, and at $1,200 a bottle one of the most expensive whiskies I’ve tried. If you’re on the fence about spending that kind of money on liquor, then you should consider that this bottle will last you longer than normal because its flavor is so concentrated. A mere half ounce should provide more than enough complexity to last an evening. At this age, the flavor leans very heavily on the sherry cask, of course, which isn’t entirely my preferred style, but it feels churlish to find faults. Incidentally, I was in the minority in the room that preferred this to the other single cask, a 24 year old, which goes for a mere $750.

A very farmyard nose: hay and and just a touch of sweet manure (!) Surprisingly soft in the mouth - fruity, sweet. A long syrupy finish.

Tamer on the nose than its 21-year-old peated sibling, its flavor profile leans to black tea and caramel. The finish is long and starts sweet and tangy. The years have almost muted the peat, which makes only a brief minty appearance towards the end.

The eldest of the unpeated BenRiachs from my recent tasting event has a nose of freshly cut red apples. Like much of the range, its flavors start off soft, sweet and creamy. This one though takes a fruity turn mid-palate and then glides into a long vanilla finish, with a bit of oak spice. Exceptional blending ensures the flavors sing in harmony and shine in their individual spotlights.

Soft, creamy, citrusy. Finishes sweet and spicy with a fruity end. The influence of the red wine casks is subtle: the whisky from those barrels spent only the last six years of its maturation there. I’d be quite happy to have a bottle of this, though it’s a step or two down from its peated sibling and ambitiously priced.

The sherry finish shines on the nose. In the mouth, it’s sweet, tangy and citrusy. A lovely long finish adds chocolate to the mix. This bottling has been replaced by a 10-year version available in travel retail, but a few more bottles are making their way into the market thanks to the discovery of some overlooked cases in a Brown Forman warehouse.

Five bottles of BenRiach and three of GlenDronach were lined up for an epic tasting event on Wednesday night, their average age in excess of 21 years. While there wasn’t a bad bottle among them, my clear favorite among the BenRiachs was this 21-year-old, one of two peated whiskies that we sampled. The BenRiach 10 Curiositas, its entry level peated offering, was the only whisky I’d tasted previously from the distillery and I found it pleasant if unremarkable. The 21 is in a different league. The peat has a unique minty quality to the nose that delights with its unfamiliarity. If you could bottle the flavor of a fresh sea breeze, this is what it would taste like: refreshingly crisp, salty and a touch sweet. The minty peat returns on the long finish, swirling in the current of the breeze. Like most of the BenRiachs we tried, this one is a combination of four different barrels, a signature of master blender Rachel Barrie. I came away hugely impressed by the skill with which she balances the flavors and full of admiration for a distillery carving a different path amid a sea of ex-bourbon matured whiskies or wine-cask show-offs. I hope to return to Temporis time and time again.

Nose: A wood cabin on a perfect spring day, just warm enough to wake the walls from their winter slumber. A jar of honey sits on the kitchen table. Palate: Interesting... Bready, slightly sweet, something slightly savory, like refried beans of all things. Finish: Long, with a hint of mint. This was a difficult one to parse from one pour in a bar. Different and worthy of more investigation, but didn’t immediately make me covet a bottle.