LouisianaLonghorn
BenRiach Curiositas 10 Year
Single Malt — Speyside, Scotland
Reviewed
November 19, 2020 (edited April 4, 2021)
Been working on this for a bit. Think I’m finally ready to share my thoughts. I’ll admit, I bought this out of scarcity mentality since it’s been discontinued (though the new model seems to be quite similar). I’ve got a 2018 bottling which has a blend of bourbon, rum, and virgin oak casks.
Nose is campfire up front, but a fruity, ashy smoke as opposed to the Islay brine and rope smoke. Peeling back the layers reveals some grilled pineapple, vanilla, and white pepper. Taste is similar, with an added layer of maltiness and a lingering sweetness from the rum casks. Medium finish.
Not an overly complex dram, but a highly pleasant sipper. Glad I got the chance to try it before it slips out of availability.
Also, I’m down to five bottles of whisky now. I gotta admit, I kinda prefer this to having 284858294858 bottles on my shelf at once. It allows me an easy choice: bourbon, Irish, Smokey, or sherry. Plus a special occasion bottle. When one’s gone, I can replace it with the same bottle or try something different within that category. After so many years of chasing down drams and trying different pours, it feels good to have a tidy bottle collection comprised of quality pours that I’ve vetted from many different whiskies. Try it for yourself! Cheers!
65.0
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Bottle
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@WhiskeyLonghorn The only advantage of buying more bottles than you can actually drink is that you have a lot of closed bottles that at today's prices I simply would not consider to buy anymore... Some prices have gone through the roof, so even though I never bought a bottle as an investment, the collection has become quite valuable.
@Slainte-Mhath I get how easy it is to snowball. I’m currently at 7 plus a mixing bourbon. I’ve been taking a look at bottles I’m not likely to finish and just giving them to friends and neighbors who I know can appreciate them more than me. I hope to have it down to five plus a mixer by summer.
@WhiskeyLonghorn I admire your bottle discipline! I started with 10 bottles in my cabinet which were all meant to be open: 2x Speyside, 1x Highlands/Campbeltown, 1x Lowlands/Islands, 2x Islay, 1x Grain/Blend, 1x Irish, 1x Bourbon/Rye, 1x Japan. Then I needed another slot for special occasions (now it's two...), I started buying replacement bottles for each of the open ones, and look where we are today!
Grabbed this tonight............Hell yeah its good! Im such a sucker for peat, this is refined though like Balvenie Peat week
@Jan-Case Nice approach to tasting...sadly i rarely had the self control you do..I'd just keep mashing the randomiser button!
@CKarmios I read it and thought "300B? That's an exaggeration" but now that you've called out that I was just mentally rounding up, I see that the number is pretty much spot on ;)
@Jan-Case @WhiskeyLonghorn Good notes on the old and appreciate the SbS with the new. Also, I could swear it used to be 284858294859 :-). Less is more!
@Soba45 I ended up giving away several half-drunk bottles too knowing that I might never finish them. After the initial sting, it did feel pretty good to downsize, particularly on the wallet.
@Jan-Case that’s great to hear. I quite enjoy this, and I think we all enjoy the smoke + sherry combo. I’ll check out the 12 next!
@Ctrexman I haven’t been to a TW in a while but the Specs up near that TW still has some, as does Twins.
My collection has around 35 open bottles at the moment. I got like 95% of all my purchases following samples I tried before. So I know I enjoy all of them at any time. What I do to pick a dram or two for the evening is using an app that picks it randomly for me. In the app I am able to create and maintain a list of all my open bottles and hit a ‘Randomize’ button. I can choose to deactivate generated picks or put them back into that list. If all bottles are deactivated it can be reset. Of course I sometimes skip a random pick if I’m not in the mood for it or if I had it shortly before without using the app. But it is always a little surprise without having to go back and forth through my bottles for half an hour to chose something knowing that I actually like all of them.
Nice taste. I fully agree. The alround quality and enjoyment of this whisky makes it one of my favorites. The new ‘Smoky Ten’ I think is a little less peaty while the new ‘Smoky Twelve’ has a bid more peat. The latter one has a sherry and marsala part instead of rum. I would suggest trying to get your hands on samples because I think they are proper replacements.
I think at one point I couldnt get below 150 samples no matter how hard I tried as my inflow rate was higher than my not minor consumption :-)
Nice! I gave away few more. Just have similar to you now. Irish, Campbeltown, Sherry, Islay left. Been 5 days since i had a drink... which is a long time for me...less choice means i'm less like "I haven't tried that for a while"..popping open one and b4 i know it i'm several deep!
Wanted to pick this up tonight but total wine at 360/183 was out of stock. Sounds pretty good
I can't tell you how many times I've stared at my collection, spending 10-15 minutes going back and forth about what I want to drink. Not the worst problem to have, but still, there's a lot to be said for simplifying.