BenRiach Single Cask Bottling – Batch 16 24 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 comes from BenRiach's Single Cask Bottling, Batch 16, the modern programme of small-outturn cask releases. Cask #6500, distilled in 1994 and bottled in 2019, yielded a small outturn of 299 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 24 years in oak, the cask was bottled at cask strength of 51.8% ABV.

The ex-Marsala cask previously held a Sicilian fortified wine with marked oxidative ageing in the solera or perpetuum system. Marsala carries Maillard products and oxidative aldehydes including sotolon, producing burnt caramel, hazelnut and dried orange peel character in the finished BenRiach. Typical tasting notes include dried fruit, oily, smokey, chocolate, honey and malt extract.