2008 Benriach 12 Year Old "Hart Brothers Finest Collection" K&L Exclusive Cask Strength Single Sherry Butt Unchillfiltered Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky (700ml)

It's a Sherry Butt from BenRiach! This distillery has been absolutely on fire recently thanks to master blender Rachel Barrie and all these awards. But the thing that people really want from this excellent Speysider, one of the few to operate its own malt floors in Scotland, are single casks. So we bought 3 of them. Having three different casks to offer captures, allows us to really begin to understand quintessential essence of BenRiach, which is a distillery that's hard to pin down in the first place. The diversity of its offerings being one of it's most prominent features. This sherry butt will be the most appealing to many, thanks to the continued obsession by most malt lovers with dark sherry casks. Let's have a taste! The color is a beautiful tawny. A nice dark one here! I let it rest for 10 minutes before first nosing. OMG, the nose has that perfect oloroso spice and nutty richness. Immediately we get old saddle leather, the darkest cacao, stewed red fruit and candied citrus. On the palate liquified X-Mas pudding, sweet and richly spiced. Big notes of cola, sarsaparilla, shoe polish, red currants and a slight flinty character (not quite gunpowder). This absolutely loves water as well, which softens the savory leathery nose and opens the jammy red fruit and rich savory nuttiness. The bold 'Riach malt still manages to poke through the rich wine and wood flavors. Tasting these three casks in tandem is a truly eye opening experience. No one will be disappointed with this exceptional casks. While the sister distillery sold out in a flash, this humble cask of BenRiach remains one of the very best casks in the shop, it will only take a few people to open and realize how special this is for it to disappear like the 'Dronach we had.