BenRiach Albariza Peated 18 Year

Excellent dram. Smooth, vanilla, balanced peat. Just a little heat/burn on the finish. Wish I had a bottle.

Slight jammy peat, port and a hint of blue cheese on the nose. The palate really is very lovely. To be honest I consider Benriach to be Glendronach's poor younger brother. It mostly aspires to goodness but rarely greatness, its spirit is thinner, missing Glendronach's viscous richness. I do however keep trying them as I'm always interesting in the various combinations of casking and distll they throw together. (I have my eye next on a tokaj cask finish which I had to google to see what it was - Hungarian wine). This is definitely up there amongst the highest I've rated for this distillery. Anyway back to the spirit. I love a good rich sherry casking and a good peated spirit and this marries prefectly. I usually let a dram rest after the initial sip often drinking it over an hour but this is so good I keep diving back in. All the nose stuff plus rum raisin, sugary prunes, toffee, cherry, fig, wood, leather and more. This is at least a 4.5 maybe even an almost unheard of 4.75 as the balance is perfect. Aftertaste is slow and warming. I rate this higher than the laga distillers Edition which to be honest on both sampling and drinking a whole bottle of I wasn't blown away with. @LeeEvolved I see you have a bottle of the 22 year. Hopefully the extra 4 years doesn't over cook it and add wood bitterness as this has zero of that. Please let me know how you find the 22 year. If it's as awesome as @Dreaming-of-Islay and I found the 18 I'll be breaking my rare bottle buying drought - several months running - and getting a bottle (18 yr is sadly sold out) I rate this as my top Benriach equal to the 1977 38 year port cask I had, maybe better.

My immediate thought was to compare this to Lagavulin Distillers Edition, which is aged for approximately 17 years, including a final year in sherry casks, and is bottled at a similar ABV. Compared to that incredible whisky, BenRiach 18 falls slightly short, but that's no discredit to it. The nose is first-rate, with scents of fruit and berry jam, including raspberries, cranberries, and grape. The intense fruitiness and richness comes from the PX casks, and is expressed here more strongly than in Lagavulin Distillers Edition. The peat is faint on the nose, and not particularly smoky. I could taste this scotch all day, as those jam notes combine with a warming, smoky peat. That smoke is rare in peated Highland single malts, particularly given the lengthy aging, so this whisky must have been heavily peated at the outset. The finish is more in the classic sherried scotch mold of Auchentoshan Three Wood, but with more balance from the spice and slightly bitter, savory flavors characteristic of a peated whisky. At $125 or so, it was not cheap when it was available, but this may be one of the best examples of the peated Highland/Speyside style that I've tried. I had Kilchoman 10th Anniversary on the same day and, to be honest, this scotch blew the Kilchoman out of the water.