"New " Benriach's? (BenRiach)

[Lawrence]

Has anybody tried the new BenRiach's that have been released in the US? The expressions are 12, 16, and 21 along with Curiositas, a 10 year old heavily peated version.

I have been told the 10 scores over 89 points and is nothing like the old light blue boxed version that Seagram released.

[andrewfenton]

I tried the heavily peated - seemed a little immature for my tastes. Wouldn't mind trying it at 15/16yr though.

[Admiral]

I wasn't up to speed on this. Does this mean the blue-boxed 10 year old is discontinued? Should I put a bottle aside as a collector's item?

Cheers,
Admiral

[Deactivated Member]

Is everyone doing a "heavily peated" now? Will the Islays become just a few more peaty drams in the stream, victims of their own success?

[Lawrence]

Admiral, yes the 'blue' box was the old owners packaging and the new owners have gone, not surprisingly, with new packaging.

Tattiehead it would seem that almost everybody was making peated whisky but hiding it in blends and not releasing it as singles. The opposite of Caol Ila making non peated whisky.

It seems they were not telling us the truth all along, next they'll release a peated Macallan FO.

[Lord_Pfaffin]

The following exerpt from the "malt whiskey.com" website:
Quote:"The earliest records of distilling at Balblair date back to 1749, though the current distillery dates back to 1790. In the 1860's a new distillery was built near the original, then at the end of the nineteenth century the current distillery was built. The distillery was closed between the two World Wars, from 1915 to 1947, reopening as an independent distillery for a few years before being sold to Hiram Walker who used the Balblair product in their Ballentine blends.
In 1996 the distillery was mothballed but was soon purchased by Inver House with plans to reestablish distillery bottlings. While under the ownership of Hiram Walker, the distillery produced rich, malty whisky for blending purposes. The current plans are for Balblair to return to a more heavily peated whisky that was traditionally produced in the earlier years of the distillery."Unquote.
After visiting Inverhouse's website, i see that they are marketing a 10, 16 and a 33yr old, along with a bottling named Balbair Elements, which is supposed to have a slight peaty note.
So i emailed Derek Sinclair about the return to heavy-peat and he said no way it's not going to happen.
quote="MrTattieHeid"]Is everyone doing a "heavily peated" now? Will the Islays become just a few more peaty drams in the stream, victims of their own success?[/quote]
Not everybody and his brother but every other guy and his cousin.

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

Benriach´s old or already the new owner sold some barrels with heavily peated Benriach to Signatory. Signatory released the contents in their "Un-Chillfiltered Collection" as a heavily peated Benriach. It is 10 years old with 46% vol. Could be the same batch as the Curiositas. The Signatory release is not coloured and has the colour of white wine, whereas the Curiositas is either coloured or, what I would prefer to believe, has a great deal of sherry barrel whisky in it.
The taste of the "Heavily Peated Benriach" lacks sea and salt and the maritime "surf an´ shore" aromas. But it has peat, peat and peat. In this respect it can stand up to the heaviest Islay whiskies. All my friends said "Islay" when they tried it first. If you are for the peated stuff I highly recomend this one. I haven´t gotten around to compare the Curiositas against the Signatory, but I still mean to.
As to the other releases by Benriach I have tried the 16 and the 21 year old. Both were mellow, aromatic with heather and honey a little smoke and traces of peat in the far background and Speyside galore. I liked them.

Greetings
kallaskander

[Admiral]

along with a bottling named Balbair Elements, which is supposed to have a slight peaty note.

I have a bottle of Balblair Elements, which admittedly I haven't opened yet.

My understanding was that it was just a younger Balblair, perhaps 7 or 8 years old, and so it was just given a no-age-statement name. I hadn't heard that it was supposed to be any different peat-wise to its older siblings.

Cheers,
Admiral

[kallaskander]

Hi there,

what Balblair? The Elements is definetly no more peaty than its older brothers. At least the one I have.

Greetings
kallaskander

[Lawrence]

LFW has a good selection of Benriach including the heavily peated version from Signatory. It could be time for another order....

[Admiral]

Do we have here our new Brora

I've had numerous Broras, and they were all wonderful, delicious, top-notch whiskies, but I don't think I've been fortunate to have had one of the heavily peated ones that could be mistaken for an Islay.

I concur with the general theme though....people taste a heavily peated malt and then try to guess whether it came from Caol Ila, Laphroaig, Ardbeg, Bowmore, Lagavulin, or Port Ellen.

It's a bit careless to overlook Longrow, Ledaig, Croftengea, Inchmoan, Brora, and so forth.

Cheers,
Admiral

[WestVanDave]

Major announcement:

Admiral said:

I concur with the general theme though

I thought of sending this as a private message - but then chose to rally the troops and share the love - I'm no Mr. T - but surely this is fodder for a few tangential distractions...

Any takers? It's been one of those days and I need a good laugh... ('have enjoyed many with the humour on this site over the last week).

Cheers, Dave.

[Lawrence]

Dave if you keep this up you'll suffer the consequences in the from of corporal punishment.

[Deactivated Member]

Thanks for making it a general post. You exaggerate about Admiral, of course, but there is a kernel of truth there.

[Lawrence]

Despite all talk of rank I ordered two Benriach's , the 10 year old Curiositas and the 12 year old. I'll let you know what they are like in due course.

[MGillespie]

Lawrence, of course, is ordering from the Lefttenant coast...

And could someone please explain to me just how the hell the "Lieu" in "Lieutenant" managed to become pronounced as "Left" in the Queen's realm anyway...is this some anti-French thing...or do the guys in Quebec still pronounce it as "Lieutenant"?

Mark

[Lawrence]

I served with a number of officers from Quebec but can't remember which way they said it. I'm not an expert on the origins of such things but I beleive the difference between the two is that one is British and the other American. Naturally Canadians use a mixture of the two.

The Sgt's & WO's called us a number of names.

[Deactivated Member]

Leftenant is the British way, but increasingly the young people here say lootenant because they watch US television programmes and films.