BenRiach Distillery is in Morayshire, Scotland which, as stated on the bottle, is in ‘The Heart of Speyside.’ The distillery was built by John Duff in 1898. Unfortunately, only two short years into production, the entire whisky industry was slammed by the ‘Pattison Crash.’ The stills at BenRiach were shutdown for 65 years. The only thing that stayed in operation during this hiatus was the floor malting facility used by neighbouring Longmorn distillery still in operation. In 1965 the whisky industry entered a golden era and BenRiach was finally able to reopen as were many other mothballed operations at the time. The facility has 2 wash stills and 2 spirit stills with a capacity of producing 2,800,000 liters of spirit per year. They produce 3 expressions – Unpeated, peated and triple distilled.
BenRiach Peated Cask Strength Batch 1 is the first release in their peated cask strength series. This expression is made with whiskies drawn from Oloroso Sherry casks and ex-Bourbon barrels. It is bottled at 56% ABV. is non-chill filtered and natural colour. It was also part of the BC Spirits Release in November of 2019. Here is my take!
Nose: Burnt butterscotch, apples, white pepper, earth, oak, and subtle peat.
Palate: More toasted toffee and apples, sweet, floral smoke.
Finish: Lingering peat, oat cakes