Single Malt
Scotland
28 Oct 1996
18 Jan 2022
Take things back to 1996 with this splendid single malt from Benrinnes, distilled in October of that exciting year and filled into a pair of hogshead casks to mature for the next 25 years! In January 2022, the folks at Signatory opened up the casks, releasing a total of 537 bottles for its independent Cask Strength Collection.
Nutty malt and sweet, sherried fruits, burnt sugar notes of pineapple upside down cake.
Creamy praline, oily barley, and sweet candied orange peels mingle with chewy toffee and honey flapjack.
Hints of vegetal oak spice and waxy peels nestle beneath roasted almonds and warming baking spice.
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Benrinnes 1996 25 year old 53.2% (bottled by Signatory Vintage). Compared it against the Benrinnes 1996 23 year old 52.6% SV I have (and I've also had the Benrinnes 22 52.3% SV but that's all gone and wasn't 'quite' as good as the 23 anyway). The 25 really suprised me by clearly outperforming the 23 year old. The 23 year old is a very good classic fruity speyside, but the end of the finish on that one left just a slight hint of a brazil nut bitterness that lingers sadly slightly tainting the terrific otherwise experience of the great nose and taste. This 25 year old has a more refined and warmer woodier (yet still fruity) nose that has remarkably little alcohol burn for 53.2% (you could easily mistake it for 43% it's so refined and more refined than it's 23yr old brother). On the palate it has a light delicious hint of mandarin and perhaps ripe tangerine, and typical (but exemplary) speyside grainy character with a warming woodsy feeling as it goes down incredibly smoothly. The long finish is an extension of those characters in the nose and palatewith also a very subtle nuttyness coming through but this time it's more a creamy macadamia/hazelnut finish (a FAR nicer aftertaste). It's utterly fantastic. I understand why the 23 year old Benrinnes 1996 was given only 89% on whisky base, that slightly bitter brazil nut finish giving hard to please whisky connoisseurs something to mark it down on. This 25 year old is pretty much perfect. I feel it's superior in every way to the still great 1996 Benrinnes 23 year old and has no negatives I can note. Expect to see this hit atleast 91% or more on whiskybase as those connoisseurs have nothing to winge about here. An utter masterpiece.
