BenRiach Distillery, Scotland     founded: 1898 | active
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This whisky was sampled on two consecutive nights by two separate groups. This review is merged from both, see the comments section for below for thoughts on the group differences.

It's pretty medicinal all roune: TCP, brine, peat, a test tube experiment. Sea(weed) and pepper meet almonds and chocolate (somehow but not really) in a big pile of silage, which makes the nearby wet dog slightly worrying. It's a bit sad and eye-hurty - like a burnt out fire in an abandomed house. The sweetness returns as honeycomb, then finally turns again, into the wonderfuly-specific 'Iranian limes'.

There's no doubting the peatiness of this one, mostly coming out as coastal flavours: old peat from the sea shore, dulse, general seaweed, oyster-y, seawater, sweet and salty (like honeycomb) and softly peppered-mackerel. I don't know what 'distilled grass' is, but if it were a real thing, it would smell like this - but also haggis. It's spicy and reasiny, with cardboard, cloves and a cheeky drop of petrol. Then we're into dark candy town, with liquorish, dark molasses and burnt cinder toffee. Meaty and umami-full.

A long finish, with freshly cut grass, hot salsa and pimento. Then it's fruity-sweet: cherry, Moffat toffee, crème brulee, burnt sugar and Chocolate Orange.

This was the first of two peaty numbers, and this was the more variable of the two. Group 1 were quite consistent, but there scores were a decent chunk higher than those of Group 1, with no crossover between the scores.



Group 2 also showed a lot more variation amongst their scores - there were concerns of the peatiness tasting a bit fake, that Group 1 didn't have.

~£50 (70cl)