1901
BenRiach Curiositas 10 Year
Single Malt — Speyside, Scotland
Reviewed
October 3, 2020 (edited November 14, 2020)
Nose: lovely sweet smoke, sea breeze, apples and green bananas
Palate: light salt, peat, fruit burst, sweet and smoky
Finish: sherry dryness, lingering salty peat smoke
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Last 16, Match 6:
BenRiach Curiositas 10yo versus Sheep Dip
Billy Walker has been described as “the smartest man in the whisky industry”. It is easy to see why with his Midas touch evident in the renaissance of Glendronach and Glenallachie distilleries. Before that he worked his magic with BenRiach leading a consortium purchase in 2004. As a peated Speyside this is somewhat unusual. In addition to the typical unpeated malt, I read that each year from 1983 BenRiach produced a sizeable amount of peated malt whisky which helped extend Walker’s creative palette and so broaden the range of what BenRiach could release.
This easily outshines its competitor in all areas. I really like the sweet peaty smell of this dram and the palate and finish are an A- grade combination of peat and sherry (if Lagavulin 16 is your A+ standard).
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Qtr Final, Match 3:
BenRiach Curiositas 10yo versus Cutty Sark Prohibition
Got some honeysuckle on the nose in the next round matchup with Cutty Sark Prohibition. The palate was a bit more overpowering than I previously experienced. I admit that I do rate the Prohibition but, nevertheless, Curiositas is clearly better than the blend.
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The intolerable torment of a whiskyphile. I have too large a backlog of samples and miniatures to go through. Like selecting what to watch next on Netflix, often selecting a dram can take twice as long as drinking it. So I developed a plan so clever you could put a tail on it and call it a fox. I have picked sixteen scotch whiskies that are 12yrs or younger or NAS to battle it out in a Scotch Deathmatch. It’s my incentive to lighten the logjam. Follow along if you care (and really why should you?). Oh the drama!
https://challonge.com/ScotchMadness
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Qtr Final, Match 3: BenRiach Curiositas 10yo versus Cutty Sark Prohibition Got some honeysuckle on the nose in the next round matchup with Cutty Sark Prohibition. The palate was a bit more overpowering than I previously experienced. I admit that I do rate the Prohibition but, nevertheless, Curiositas is clearly better than the blend
@Jan-Case Thanks for that context :) I think appealing to a wider audience can produce mixed results, but changes disproportionately alienate fans (since they kept buying it because they liked how it was). To each their own, I say. The supposition of course from fans in most cases is that younger spirits, cheaper barrels, or whatever else are being used to cut costs, thereby reducing quality. That's verifiably true in many cases (e.g. when the age statement disappears), but I've seen a some lately (e.g. Wild Turkey Rare Breed 116) where a change occurs and most people like it, so I'm totally willing to accept the possibility of a distillery figuring out an improvement :) Also, I'm with you on the Highland Park redesign - the new bottles look great! And I would kill (not actually) for a Springbank redesign.
@ContemplativeFox I’m not long enough into the whisky scene so I didn’t make this observation myself yet but I sure heard about it from the Distiller community. (Like Glendronach, Glenlivet, Highland Park and so on). But maybe I am the kind of person they make these changes for. For experienced people that change might be drastic if considered a downgrade. For people like me it is a streamlining process to appeal to a wider audience maybe? Also I am usually give anything the benefit of the doubt. And I also like the new Benromach and Highland Park design as well as the new Benriach design that so far nearly everyone else doesn’t like at all. It surely is a wild and interesting time for whisky.
@Jan-Case That's fascinating. It's so rare to hear of whiskey getting better. It seems like every year someone is finding a new way to cut costs by sucking the life out of it.
@ContemplativeFox I was surprised too. But I did a back to back comparison some time ago and couldn’t even finish the glas of the old one. The thing is that the nose is still good on the old one but the palate is just rough and unbalanced and for me kinda unpleasant. I found myself thinking about downgrading the new version to 4.5 at that point as well but I wait for that second assessment until I had it one a clean palate again.
@Jan-Case Wow, I knew you liked the new one better, but I had no idea that the gap was so big!
@1901 I’m just asking because the new version in my opinion is way better than the original one. And I mean significantly. I have both bottles at home and the old one is a 2.5 / 2.75 -ish while the new version is a 4.75 I really am curious about the new replacement “The Smoky ten” which is another evolution of the Curiositas.
@Jan-Case I generally don’t fancy rum finishes, and I don’t detect it here (though that could easily be a judgement on my detecting skills). I bought the sample bottle around this time of year in 2018. Could be either i guess?
But is this the original Billy Walker Curiositas or is it the post 2018 version that was revised by Rachel Barrie (with the added Rum Cask finish addition being the most notable change)?
What makes him so interesting (and successful) is that despite his 50-year experience in the industry he still thinks of and treats his whiskies like a startup craft distiller would.