BenRiach Single Cask Bottling – Batch 15 26 Years Old 1991

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 comes from BenRiach's Single Cask Bottling, Batch 15, the modern programme of small-outturn cask releases. Cask #6898, distilled in 1991 and bottled in 2018, yielded a small outturn of 270 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 26 years in oak, the cask was bottled at cask strength of 49.4% ABV.

The ex-Burgundy cask previously held a French Pinot Noir or Chardonnay aged in French oak (Quercus petraea), which is finer-grained and lower in lactones than American white oak. The result is a more restrained but more tannic structure, with red fruit and earthy compounds layered into the BenRiach by the residual wine. Typical tasting notes include cooked fruit, dried fruit, fresh fruit, honey, malt extract and nutty.