BenRiach Cask Edition 27 Years Old 1994

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. Heritage stock from this period is finite, with the distillery selectively releasing remaining casks under Brown-Forman. This release is part of the Cask Edition, the small-outturn single cask programme BenRiach has run alongside its core range since the Billy Walker era. Distilled in 1994 and bottled in 2021, the whisky was drawn from cask #2059 with an outturn of 659 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 27 years in oak, the cask was bottled at cask strength of 53% 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. Typical tasting notes include coal-gas, cooked fruit, dried fruit, honey, smokey and vanilla.