Things I Really Drink: Benromach 10 vs Benromach 10 vs Benromach 10

(Benromach cluster homepage)

Ah, here we are, the real reason for this cluster, three different bottlings of Benromach 10 year old, with three different labels, and three different bottle shapes. And, yes, all three of today's pours are from my own bottles. There's the maroon-labelled edition, bottled in 2010; the chalky script and small dark label, bottled in August of 2019; and the current edition, with the white and red label, bottled in December 2020. They are all a mix of sherry and bourbon casks, bottled at 43%abv.

Benromach 10-year-old arrived in 2009, ten years after Gordon & MacPhail restarted the stills. The entire range kept the label style seen in the first bottled on the left in the picture below, though in different colors for different expressions. In 2014, Benromach shifted to the style seen in the middle bottle, just as the 15-year-old saw the light of day (or the fluorescents above the shelf). And when the 21-year-old arrived in 2020, the design changed again.

Shifts in packaging design often trigger expectations of changes to the products within, with Talisker and Arran being two examples I've explored previously. It's time to find out how reliable ol' Benromach 10 fared across one decade.

Forres Triplets

Benromach 10 year old bottled 2010	Benromach 10 year old bottled Aug 2019	Benromach 10 year old bottled Dec 2020
Nuts Nuts Nuts to the nose: hazelnuts, almonds, and pistachios. Brine, mint, and orange peel mix seamlessly with the peaty smoke. Limes, cantaloupes, and a smoky vanilla bean stay in the background.	Lovely smoke blankets the nose. Hot asphalt, dead leaves (and the dirty ground?), and dark chocolate fill the middle. Dried mango and dried cherries emerge with time.	This one's nose offers the most obvious Oloroso note, which balances well with an earthy peat. Grape jelly rings and mothballs stay in the background, and an apricot jam note appears after a while.
Much heavier smoke here on the palate, but wait, there's more! Hay, toasted oats, dried currants, dried blueberries, anise, and hint of sweet oranges mingle below.	The palate matches the nose's style well. Salty smoke, bitter chocolate, and orange peel up top; tart cherry compote on the bottom. The bitterness and tartness blend and expand after 30ish minutes.	It has more honeyed, vanilla US oak on its palate that the other two. But the dried cherries, ultra tart citrus, milk chocolate, and cayenne pepper keep the tannins in check.
It finishes with smoke from a spicy cigar, dark chocolate, and tart limes.	The smoke gets sootier in the finish, and has a good industrial touch to it. Hay, bitter citrus, and a smidgeon of sweetness round it out.	The sweetest of the three finishes, full of oranges, mellow peat, and a lil' cayenne bite.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Benromach 10 year old, bottled 2010 - Despite almost nine years in a sample bottle, this version has lost no oomph. The nose shows more balance than the busy palate, but everything works. At 43%abv, the whisky is light but not thin, though it does leave me thinking it could have been a real stonker at a higher strength.

Benromach 10 year old, bottled Aug 2019 - This terrific batch is as stellar as a 21st century 10yo 43%abv single malt can get. Yeah, it might have been better at 46%, but everything works so seamlessly here that I'm not going to grouse about it. Salt, smoke, bitterness, tartness, and sweetness all caught in a neat little delivery, perfect for this autumn. To think I bought this for $29.99, and to think I bought only one bottle.

Benromach 10 year old, bottled Dec 2020 - The most obvious and simplest of the trio, this batch seems to be composed of more active casks. Thanks to Benromach's spirit, it's still a good drink. Yet if the distillery pushes the oak any further, a very good single malt could be wrecked. I hope the blending team can get back to the 2019's style, and maybe they have in the three years since this batch. It'd be a shame for Benromach to join The Industry's ongoing oak extraction competition.

(In bigger news, Suzy Creamcheese actually stood still for a moment to express my very feelings about the winning batch. She's more difficult to photograph than the Loch Ness Monster, though more accurate at the litter box.)

All three of these bottlings proved to be very good, and thanks to the 43%abv, I was able to finish a Taste Off Trio without being knocked out for the night. Each batch had its own character, though the first two possessed what some of us consider an "old school" style, with fruits integrating well with moderate-yet-industrial peat, and very little oak intrusion. The 2020 bottling departs from that approach, leaning more towards a cask-led contemporary style. Yet, according to Winesearcher's analytics, the 10's average price, worldwide, is the same as it was nine years ago. So I expect I'll keep bottles of this in the stash, at the ready, for years to come.

RATINGS

Benromach 10 year old, bottled 2010 - 85

Benromach 10 year old, bottled Aug 2019 - 89

Benromach 10 year old, bottled Dec 2020 - 84

Things I Really Drink: Benromach 10 year old 2011 Polish Oak, cask 772

(Benromach cluster homepage)

I bought this. I don't like this. Everything else is just words.

And here are the words.

Cask 772 caught my eye because one doesn't see "Polish Oak" being touted on a whisky's label often, or ever. The thought of delicious Benromach spirit aging in a unique cask was very appealing. What all of the packaging's labels, official notes, and press releases leave out is the fact that this cask was soaked in "fortified wine".

The bottle's first pours were shared with friends, and I found the whisky to be quite tannic but interesting. Each subsequent pour (on separate nights) sunk further in my esteem. Liqueur sweet, the whisky had been suffocated not by Polish oak, but the "fortified wine". Since so much effort is put into celebrating the damned tree the cask was fashioned from, why couldn’t the distillery just toast the oak, not dress it up, and then apply the spirit? This is the first time I've been disappointed by Benromach, not just by one of their whiskies, but the distillery itself. If the cask ain't naked, then disclose its drapery.

I'm not looking forward to doing the tasting for this review, but here I go.

Distillery: Benromach
Ownership: Gordon & MacPhail
Region: Speyside (Findhorn)
Range: Single Cask Edition

Age: 10 years (21 November 2011 - 31 October 2022)
Maturation: first-fill Polish oak aggressively seasoned with unknown fortified wine
Cask: 772
Outturn: 263 bottles
Alcohol by Volume: 58.6%
(one-third of the way down the bottle)

NEAT

Nose — First: Luxardo syrup, Chambord, and Creme de Cassis. Then: Mint extract, eucalyptus, and hazelnuts. Finally: Vanilla and apricots.

Palate — A weird cocktail of tawny port, blueberry syrup, and cherry popsicles strikes first, followed by leather, metal, and peppercorns. Maybe some dusty smoke in the far back.

Finish — A different ill-advised cocktail here: cherry liqueur, Cointreau, Angostura bitters, and Creme de Cassis, with cinnamon stick garnish.

DILUTED to 50%abv, or 1 tsp of water per 30mL whisky

Nose — Raspberry jam, roses, and orange pixy stix. No peat, but a sizable dose of perfume.

Palate — Very metallic and sugary. Acidic. Angostura bitters and menthol in the background.

Finish — Luxardo syrup, cayenne, and menthol.

YES, WORDS WORDS WORDS

I would have been happy with a uniquely weird whisky. But this is just another spirit annihilated by its cask's former (or not-so-former) contents. Maybe it'd be interesting if thickened and drizzled on vanilla ice cream, but that's not what I was led to believe this product was.

As you can see in Whiskybase, some people enjoy this style of whisky. Those folks would probably not enjoy most of my reviews, but I am glad this whisky found happy homes. From now on I'll stick to standard Benromach, the sort of stuff that will populate Monday's review...

Availability - still for sale at some UK shops
Pricing - a little over $100 (w/shipping)
Rating - 71 (the nose keeps it out of the 60s)

Benromach 2009 Cask Strength, batch 4

(Benromach cluster homepage)

Hey look another one of these BCS (Benromach Cask Strength, not the college football thing) items! On Monday, the 2007 Batch One proved to be merely very good. Today's batch of 29 sherry and bourbon casks whisked together was the last of the 2009 vintage batches. The sample comes from Mr. Opinions's's own bottle, so I expect nothing but the absolute best here.

Distillery: Benromach
Ownership: Gordon & MacPhail
Region: Speyside (Findhorn)
Range: Cask Strength





Age: 10-11 years (2009-2020)
Maturation: first-fill sherry and bourbon casks
Outturn: ???? bottles from 29 casks

Alcohol by Volume: 57.2%
Chillfiltered? No
e150a? No
(thank you to My Annoying Opinions for the sample!)

NEAT

The nose shows earthier peat (soil and dirty rocks) and fudgier chocolate than the 2007. Dried apricots and rooibos soon follow. Subtler floral and PX notes appear after 30+ minutes. Good balances of sweet and peat in the palate. Picture pork tenderloin with an apricot sauce. Honey roasted nuts, cinnamon, and toasted oak spices join in later on. It finishes similarly, but with more citrus and less peat.

DILUTED to ~50%abv, between ¾ and 1 tsp of water per 30mL whisky

I like it better here! Steak and dried cherries on the nose. Black walnuts and flowers. Milk chocolate and pine. The palate has shifted to dried cherries, ginger, wood smoke, and clove cigarettes. Oh my, a lovely long finish of bonfire and ocean water.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

It was a close race between this batch and the 2007 batch until I diluted them both, then this one pulled ahead, especially with its excellent finish. Its color was lighter than the other batch, and the sherry casks were better integrated. I'm not sure if those two aspects are related, but it seems like they are. A good pickup by Mr. Opinions. I could have certainly used a bottle of this during the early Covid Era.

Availability - Maybe still a few bottles in Europe?
Pricing - $100ish?
Rating - 87

Benromach 2007 Cask Strength, Batch 1

(Benromach cluster homepage)

Five years and a dozen batches late, I'm finally trying a Benromach Vintage Cask Strength whisky. Before this today, I'd thought that these batches were numbered sequentially like Laphroaig's CSes, but actually there's more to it. The distillery is releasing them by vintage, and there are batches within the vintage:

2007: 1 batch, 2018 release
2008: 2 batches, 2018 and 2019 releases
2009: 4 batches, 2019 and 2020 releases
2010: 1 batch, 2021 release
2011: 0 batches
2012: 3 batches, 2022 release
2013: 1 batch, 2023 release

They are 57%-60%abv, and a mix of 30 or fewer first-fill sherry and bourbon casks. That very first batch, the 2007, may be the only one released with a 750mL release, and it's the one I'm reviewing today.

Distillery: Benromach
Ownership: Gordon & MacPhail
Region: Speyside (Findhorn)
Range: Cask Strength





Age: 10-11 years (2007-2018)
Maturation: first-fill bourbon and sherry casks
Outturn: ????

Alcohol by Volume: 58.2%
Chillfiltered? No
e150a? No
(from a bottle split)

NEAT

The nose has a nice mix of coastal peat up front and wood smoke in the back. Almonds, toffee, cocoa powder, dried blueberries, and prunes fill the middle. A smoky ham note appears, after 30+ minutes. Chocolate jelly rings, salt, and pepper lead the palate. Moderate smoke and toffee pudding arrive next, with just a squeeze of lime in the background. It all gets sweeter and very peppery (cayenne) in the finish, and smoke turns sooty.

Not reducing it too much...

DILUTED to 50%abv, or 1 tsp of water per 30mL whisky

The nose simplifies to salt, smoke, and milk chocolate, with smaller notes of mercurochrome and charred BBQ bits. The palate gets sweeter and saltier, with specific notes of pineapple juice and smoky toffee pudding. Again, the smoke turns sootier in the finish, followed by a mix of salt, citrus, and milk chocolate.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

Looking at my notes, I realize I have no strong feelings about this whisky, other than it's solid B-grade stuff. The sherry casks have more influence than the ex-bourbon vessels, but the spirit still lives on. It never gets too sweet nor too oaky. The peat works best in the nose, and the finish is quite nice. Brands/distilleries usually start off a range with a killer batch to get the market hooked, but this whisky is merely very good. That's not a complaint, but I hope this isn't peak Benromach Cask Strength because this distillery is capable of delivering excellent whisky.

Availability - Sold through
Pricing - less than $100?
Rating - 85

Benromach 8 year old 2011, cask 400 for The Whisky Exchange

(Benromach cluster homepage)

While Wednesday's NAS Traditional presented Benromach diluted to the lowest legal ABV (40%), the distillery has also offered many single cask/vintage whiskies, usually powering in at 57%-62%abv. I've tried several of these, ranging from pretty good to pretty excellent, all of them bourbon casks. Today I'm going to try a single sherry cask, sold exclusively by The Whisky Exchange in honor of the retailer's 20th anniversary.

Distillery: Benromach
Ownership: Gordon & MacPhail
Region: Speyside (Findhorn)





Age: 8 years (2011 to 2019)
Maturation: first-fill sherry hogshead
Cask #: 400
Outturn: 311 bottles

Exclusive to: The Whisky Exchange
Alcohol by Volume: 59.1%
Chillfiltered? No
e150a? No
(thank you to My Annoying Opinions for the sample!)

NEAT

It has a chocolatey nose, with semi-sweet chocolate, chocolate cherry cordials, and Nestle Quik powder up front, orange oil and wood smoke in the back. A plum note, appearing at the 20-minute mark, expands with time. The thick palate tosses nuts, cherries, and plums in with moderate peatiness and chile oil bite. It finishes with almond brittle and lemons, and hints of bonfire smoke and bitterness.

I could reduce it to 40% or 43% to match their standard OB strength, but nah.

DILUTED to ~46%abv, or 1¾ tsp of water per 30mL whisky

The nose is saltier, tarrier, and earthier, with a big note of Luxardo cherry syrup in the middle. Less sugar, more salt in the palate, which shows charred pepper skins, dried cranberries, and milk chocolate notes. It finishes with heftier smoke and brighter bitterness.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

This big, thumping sherry hoggie thing isn't the most complex whisky, but it's very tasty, a hefty winter warmer, and probably a good dessert-after-dessert pour. It's probably best that Benromach bottled it at eight years because it may have turned into an oaky mess at 10 or 12.  The addition of water doesn't hurt it, possibly helps it, depending on one's palate. I'm not sure if a drinker could ask for more from a contemporary sherried-peated whisky at this age.

Availability - Sold through
Pricing - I think it was £75 in 2019-2020
Rating - 87

Benromach Traditional

(Benromach cluster homepage)

Like all new distilleries, Benromach released young whisky in order to start generating some revenue from its own product. Unlike today's new distilleries, G&M did not push barely-legal 3 year old malt into the market, they waited until the 5-6yo range (much as Glengyle/Kilkerran would a few years later). It was diluted down to 40%abv, but it sold for $30ish, so a buyer's outlay wasn't too risky. It went by the name "Traditional" from 2004 to early 2014, and then gained a bold 5-year-old age statement through 2015.

Distillery: Benromach
Ownership: Gordon & MacPhail
Region: Speyside (Findhorn)





Age: NAS
Maturation: first-fill bourbon and sherry casks
Alcohol by Volume: 40%
Chillfiltered? Yes
e150a? possibly not
(from a bottle split)

NOTES

Barley-loaded new make forms the nose's base, with peated mint candies, cardamom, and orange creamsicles on top. It slowly takes on notes of denim and boat docks. Orange candy and sooty smoke (or orange smoke and sooty candy?) arrive first in the palate, followed by soil and lemons. Unfortunately it feels thin and watery in the mouth. It finishes with sooty lemonade, mint leaf, and a little bit of metal.

WORDS WORDS WORDS

I'll start with the positives. This is very good for its age, and will certainly appeal to those of us who prefer as little oak as possible in our whiskies. One really gets a sense of Benromach's spirit here, which offers a combination of citrus and smoke that shows up in other great malts like Ardmore, Caol Ila, and Longrow. The 40%abv is the problem. Perhaps G&M thought the spirit would be too rough at 43% or 46%, or they were trying to stretch their product into as many bottles as possible.

The owners discontinued this bottling eight years ago. If they ever decide to bring it back, I hope they follow Ardbeg's lead (something I almost never advise) and bottle their baby whisky at 46%abv or higher. Let it shine!

Availability - Maybe in random stores somewhere in Europe?
Pricing - $30-$40 back in 2015
Rating - 81

The Benromach Mini-Cluster!

That Benromach still produces whisky today is one of whiskydom's wee miracles. Before its first production year, 1900, had completed, the distillery was closed due to financial issues linked to the Pattison crash. It reopened in 1907 under a different name, Forres, and then closed three years later due to the onset of The Great War. It reopened after the war, then was closed again in 1931. Under the ownership of National Distillers of America, it reopened in 1938. It was scooped up by DCL in 1953, and then was closed again in 1983, along with many other of DCL/UD's distilleries during the Whisky Loch. But unlike most of the other shuttered facilities, Benromach was not bulldozed to the ground. Instead it was sold to independent bottler, Gordon & MacPhail, in 1993. G&M then fired up the stills in 1999, and they're still running in 2023.

The last I'd checked, Benromach was the smallest distillery in Speyside. Its capacity is similar to Springbank's, and like the famous Campbeltowner it only produces a fraction of that capacity each year. Most of its malt is peated at 12ppm (right in my favorite peaty window of 10-15ppm), though it also has occasional batches going in with the thumping power of 60ppm. Also similar to Springbank distillery, Benromach has widely varying fermentation times (67-115 hours) and a range of middle cut points (60%-72%).

All of this results in one of my favorite single malts. Its style feels old school, or at least satisfies my fantasy of old school scotch. The ever-present moderate peat isn't the main show, rather one of many well-balanced ingredients. That peat sometimes has a greasy, industrial edge not found in too many contemporary whiskies, which is what probably soothes the aforementioned fantasy. It feels like expertly-honed blue-collar scotch from a previous generation. And even if it isn't actually like "old school" whisky, at least it's delicious.

I have several bottles of Benromach, and I've been waiting to open a few this year. With autumn dawning around us, this felt like the perfect time to uncork 'em. I also have a host of Benromach samples gathering dust here, so it's time to cluster up!

BENROMACH CLUSTER ROLL CALL:

1. Benromach Traditional - "One really gets a sense of Benromach's spirit here, which offers a combination of citrus and smoke that shows up in other great malts......The 40%abv is the problem."

2. Benromach 8 year old 2011, cask 400 for TWE - "...a hefty winter warmer, and probably a good dessert-after-dessert pour."

3. Benromach 2007 Cask Strength, Batch 1 - "The sherry casks have more influence than the ex-bourbon vessels, but the spirit still lives on."

4. Benromach 2009 Cask Strength, Batch 4 - "I could have certainly used a bottle of this during the early Covid Era."

5. Benromach 10 year old 2011 Polish Oak, cask 772 - "I bought this. I don't like this."

6. Benromach 10 year old, bottled 2010 - "The nose shows more balance than the busy palate, but everything works."

7. Benromach 10 year old, bottled August 2019 - "Salt, smoke, bitterness, tartness, and sweetness all caught in a neat little delivery, perfect for this autumn."

8. Benromach 10 year old, bottled December 2020 - "...this batch seems to be composed of more active casks. Thanks to Benromach's spirit, it's still a good drink."

9. Benromach 35 year old - "...the UD distillate flaunts lovely bright fruits with flickers of darkness in the background. But 43%abv?"