2010 vintage Benromach bottled after 10 years exclusively for The Whisky Exchange. 211 bottles resulting from a 1st fill bourbon barrel and clocking in at 58.4%. You can still pick these up on the TWE website for £79.95.
Nose: Placid wood smoke lifts stewed cooking apples whilst singed cloves and burnt edged gingerbread are combined with chocolate covered digestives and Viennese whirls. A sense of ‘meatiness’ runs throughout – spent cooking fats and beef dripping gravy. It provides a thought-provoking foil to the sweeter notes. The addition of water reveals a softer, earthier side with leafy greens and an aromatic wood influence from cedar.
Taste: Tart apple leads off before spiced chocolate – cinnamon and chilli – before unravelling into supportive earthy smoke and freshly cooked oven buns. A hint of salinity hides at the back, giving way to palpable ashy char. Reduction again soothes, resulting in a far sweeter palate which focusses on creaminess and a compote of fresh and cooked apples.
Finish: Medium in length and favouring the distillate with souring apples sitting before a final tingle of cask-led spice.
Exceptionally characterful Benromach that has been bottled at an optimum moment to allow the spirit’s personality ample room to shine. The result marries animated, bursting fruit with deeper, darker burnt flavours – and yet it never quite falls completely into the darkness, and manages to retain its elegance and a fresh, feathery refinement throughout. Simply a great cask. Highly likeable indeed.
Review sample provided by The Whisky Exchange.