Distilled in 2012, this limited release from the Benromach distillery has been matured in kiln-dried virgin oak casks for 10 years. Bottled in 2023, this is one of two limited edition releases under the ‘Contrasts’ series, the second dram has been matured in air-dried virgin casks, so it would make an excellent side-by-side comparison to see how each maturation style changes the taste profile while it is on the plate.
Nose
Aromas of waxy lemon peel, toffee apple, sweet hay and malt biscuits.
Palate
Creamy with a taste of tropical pineapple. Barley sugar, fresh lime and ginger. Menthol undertones develop along with oak.
Exit
Sweet notes of smoke linger on the finish.
Benromach was founded in 1898 and was one of the distilleries that had to close in 1983, when very little whiskey was drunk and the industry lagged. But fortunately, Benromach restarted production in 1998, as (so far) the only one of the many missing distilleries to turn off the boilers in that fateful year.
It was the independent bottler Gordon & MacPhail who brought Benromach to life. In 1993 they bought what was left of the distillery (a few washbacks and the empty buildings) and then spent the next 5 years renovating and installing new equipment. Gordon & MacPhail is known to have vast quantities of old whiskey that the company has purchased over the years, and were thus uniquely placed to look through their “floating library” and trace the style that Benromach had before the closure .
The new distillery was then designed so that it could match the old style as best as possible, and they even installed a malt grinder that was built in 1913! In particular, a hint of smoke was thought to be extremely important. This is how Speyside whiskey tasted in the old days, because before the 1960s most distilleries malted themselves, and here they used both coal and peat. Their standard malt is peated to 10-12ppm, but they also make a little bit of whiskey with a significantly stronger smoke, which can be tasted in bottlings like Contrasts: Peat Smoke.
