BenRiach Single Cask Bottling – Batch 9 34 Years Old 1977

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 9, the modern programme of small-outturn cask releases. Cask #2593, distilled in 1977 and bottled in 2012, yielded a small outturn of 278 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 34 years in oak, the cask was bottled at 44.2% ABV, a natural cask strength reflecting the long evaporation.

The ex-Sauternes cask previously held a botrytised sweet white wine from the Bordeaux region, where Botrytis cinerea (noble rot) concentrates sugars and develops compounds such as solerone and beta-damascenone. These carry into the BenRiach as apricot, honeyed peach and beeswax character with a clear floral lift.