The Smoky Ten from Benriach's core range launched in 2020 shows off the distillery's skill at working with peated malt. Master blender Dr. Rachel Barrie and her team created this expression using whisky matured in bourbon barrels, toasted virgin oak casks and Jamaican rum casks, building a delicious flavour profile of ripe fruit and creamy spices to support the peaty wafts at its core. Top post-dinner dram, this!
Toasted coconut, aromatic smoke and a touch of greengage.
Cinnamon, ginger and dry smoke, shortly followed by maple syrup and peach.
Waves of fresh vanilla, salted butter and toasted barley.
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VERY NICE, fresh NOSE, very aromatic. Fruity, and very floral. Treacle, chocolate milk mix. Big big COCOA powder. Molasses-y, mineraly, slightly dry RUM is dominant upfront, then recedes and blends itself into the background with aeration, as fruit and PEAT take over. Candied lemons, lime, kiwis. Green apples and apple drop candies. Pears (with time). Papayas, mangos, pineapple. Red currants. Honey melon. Zesty tropical type fruits I'm finding it hard to identify (certainly from the rum maturation). Gooseberries and rhubarb. Raspberry note (with time). Brambles (blackberries) and black currants. Beautifully BALANCED between SWEET & syrupy and sharper FRUIT NOTES. A fresh green ferny thing (with time). Lime peels, banana peels. Sweet oranges or tangerines, faintly, with time. Leather in the back of it. THE PEAT adds a delectable savoriness but does not dominate. RICH MEDIUM-dark CHOCOLATE, with the peat, on the PALATE. PeaT heaDs will, let me say, not be disappointed here - nor will those looking for a luscious and sweet dram with some depth and dimensionality to it. There's less fruit in the mouth than on the nose; you get the baseline sweeter fruits, but not so much the fresher type ones. Sweet candied lemons most prominent there. Pear drops / apple drops. Treacle again. I'm definitely also getting the applewood that is in the official tasting notes here. The PEAT and the RUM I would say makes for a very satisfying chewy experience: and one that lingers on the finish. SWEET, fruity, aromatic, peaty: the SMOKY TEN 1''0, to me, has got it all, and everything in sublime balance. Good casks! Very highly recommended. ( One late afternoon neck pour and one very late night second pour. )
Cracking presentation on this. A lovely bright orange natural colour (as confirmed in tiny writing on the back of the case) and bottled at 46%. Fairly unique 3 cask maturation: Bourbon, Rum, Virgin Oak. Benriach have relaunched their entire core range and each one features a varying cask selection. This enables the consumer to pick one based on his preferences rather than having an entire range dedicated to 1 type of cask. I think this is a good move however I'm not sure if the regular bar fly will be able to discern the various types on a night out. Not a problem at the moment alas. Nose - soft tropical fruits - pineapple, mango. Wood smoke, not a medicinal or briny smoke. Taste - Sweet & creamy, smoke arrives in different waves, you feel there is a fight going on between the non-peated and the peated malt elements. Very ripe tropical fruit Finish - Sweet and spicy. The Virgin oak comes through on the finish and adds some baking spice to the mix. The smoke is evidently there but it is fairly toned down. Overall. This is a well constructed dram and the 3 casks work very well together. I've seen this previously described as 'A summer BBQ in a glass' - and I think that's a great assessment. You can definitely imagine enjoying one while cooking some jerk chicken outside on the grill whilst a mango salad awaits in the fridge.
