Nose is all red jams and honey and simple syrup, with the faintest bit of sawdust. Palate is stereotypical sherried Speyside, redolent with red berries and raisins, riding a supporting note of wood tannic dryness. This isn’t a perfect balance though…the sweetness that starts so boldly transitions (too) quickly to wood in the close and results in an overall dry delivery. This is good, if slightly pedestrian, and I consider it a better, less-expensive option to most any Macallan (but if you’ve read any of my Macallan reviews, you’ll know it is not my preferred profile). My only prior Benriach experience was the Curiositas 10yr. This is emphatically not that, and I am somewhat surprised (and disappointed) that the burning tire, sweltering hot metal and dried hayfield notes I so loved in the Curiositas are absent. It is interesting that both came from the same distillery, and I do give credit for doing well something so drastically different. I just wish they’d kept ‘different’ as the goal for the entire lineup.