BenRiach 31 Years Old 1989 (SMWS 12.62)

BenRiach sits on the Elgin plain in Speyside, founded in 1898 by John Duff. Through much of the late 20th century the distillery operated quietly as a filler for Chivas blends, with single malt releases rare until the Billy Walker era from 2004 onwards. The casks from this period are now finite, held mostly by independent merchants who laid them down when the stock was originally destined for blending. This release was bottled by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, the members-only club founded in Edinburgh in 1983. SMWS bottlings are single cask and cask strength, identified by a numerical code in which the digits before the dot identify the distillery and the digits after identify the cask. It is part of the Heaven-sent series. Drawn from cask #12.62 and bottled in 2020, this 1989 vintage totalled 514 bottles for the European 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 31 years in oak, the cask was bottled at cask strength of 57.9% ABV.

The ex-PX butt previously held the densest of sherries, made from sun-dried Pedro Ximenez grapes with residual sugar levels above 400 g/L. The cask carries glycerol and complex Maillard-reaction compounds into the BenRiach, producing the dense raisin, fig, dark molasses and burnt sugar character that defines PX-finished whiskies. Typical tasting notes include cooked vegetable.