Sometimes I wonder what the world was like before certain combinations were invented or discovered. For example, what did people use to do before the discovery of adding salt to hot chips? Eat them plain? Huh? Also, what was going on before tomato sauce was invented? If you try and tell me that the Romans had just plain sausages at their BBQs, and enjoyed it…I will slap you.
I have a great love for heavily peated whiskies. Also, sherry cask/finish whiskies hold a special place in my heart. So imagine my delight when I was given a sample of Benriach that is both heavily peated AND sherry finished. It is taking two of my favourite things and adding them together, much like a bacon and banana melt. Seriously, try it. After tasting this peated sherry finish, I don’t remember what life was like before hand!
The first thing that strikes you when you remove the bottle from its tubing is the intense colour. A very deep rusty-gold. ‘Depth’ of colour is an abstract term, I know. Let me try and flesh it out. You’ve heard of the colour ‘ocean blue’ right? You might have seen it on a car or on a colour swatch. But when you head to the beach and see the real ocean, you understand what ocean blue is. The colour is vibrant, almost living. It is the same with the Benriach peated sherry.
The rusty-gold is a colour I just can’t take my eyes away from. It is intense, clear and striking.
After watching the video on how to taste a whisky on our Facebook page, I rotate the liquid around the glass to coat the edges. Thin legs slowly gather and run down the side. This is to be expected of a whisky that is 50% ABV. The high viscosity, seen in the slow moving drips down the side, tell me that it is choc full of juicy oils and esters. My favourite.
The smell gathering at the top of my nosing glass is amazing. Sweet peat, some stewed dried fruit, with a slight citrus/berry back drop, most likely due to the Pedro Ximenez Sherry casks. My third whiff brings out a really strong sultana note. Which is to be expected, as sultanas are a great mix of sweet and tart.
The flavour has a slight floral note that I wasn’t expecting. Almost an English winter garden flowers. Of course there is peat. Oh glorious, sweet, smokey, sticky, sumptuous, slippery peat. Different to its other heavily peated relatives, this peat flavour tends to linger more at the front of the tongue. The back of the mouth and the finish is strong with that sweetness present in sherry. I find the sultana is present in the finish too. A very long finish, that slowly fades into a dull spice as one breathes out. This is a whisky you continue to taste for a while after you sip.
As I flip the bottle back the right way from trying to shake every last drop out, I see something that makes my heart drop a bit. “Limited Production.” Of course! Typical, introduced to something that takes me to a new world, only to find out it’s all gone. Oh well. As they say, better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all! But I’m comforted by the fact that this combination is so good, someone else is bound to do it.
Summing up:
Appearance: normally I don’t have a section for appearance, but that deep, deep colour in the whisky is itself a work of art
Nose: peat, raw sugar, sultanas and a slight berry note. In that exact order actually
Tastes: sweetened peat, floral English flowers and sweet stewed fruit from the sherry finish
Mouth feel: definitely a whisky you can chew on. Your mouth actually has a smoky English garden in it
Finish: an evolving finish. Starts smokey, moves to sweet and berry like, then ends as slightly spicy.
Accompanying tracks: the sweet smokiness of Louis Armstrong. I love a jazz man singing a French classic.
~ Written by Lex Getley
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