BenRiach 25 Years Old 2000 The Fine Art of Whisky (Brühler Whiskyhaus)

BenRiach sits on the Elgin plain in Speyside, founded in 1898 by John Duff and operating on the same site as its sister distillery Longmorn. Mothballed for 65 years after the Pattison crash, the distillery reopened in 1965 as a blending malt for Chivas, and was reborn as a single malt focus under Billy Walker from 2004 onwards. Brown-Forman acquired BenRiach in 2016 with Dr Rachel Barrie as Master Blender, retaining the cask-diverse house style and the three distillate styles (classic Speyside, peated, and triple-distilled) alongside reactivated floor maltings. This release was bottled by Brühler Whiskyhaus, the long-established German merchant based in Brühl, which releases single cask selections under its own label for collectors and the home market. It is part of the Fine Art of Whisky series. Distilled in 2000 and bottled in 2025, the release had an outturn of just 125 bottles for the German market.

BenRiach distils on two pairs of copper pot stills, with ogee-shaped wash stills feeding onion-shaped spirit stills under steam heat. Fermentation runs between 48 and 100 hours in stainless steel washbacks on Mauri liquid yeast, with new make collected at 68% ABV before filling to cask. After 25 years in oak, the cask was bottled at cask strength of 52.3% ABV.

The ex-Oloroso butt previously held a dry, oxidatively aged Spanish sherry, with the oxidation generating aldehyde compounds including sotolon, which carry distinctive walnut, dried fig and roasted nut character into the BenRiach. European oak (Quercus robur) is denser and more tannic than American white oak, contributing leather, polished wood and a darker structural backbone.