Benrinnes

Region: Speyside (Speyside-Glenlivet)

Owner: Diageo

Founded: 1826

The distillery is distinctly eccentric, almost to the point of weirdness. It features two sets of three stills, which work together as a trio, which results in a sort of partial triple distillation. The feints from the wash still are sent directly to the low wines receiver, but the foreshots are redistilled in the in-between still along with the feints and foreshots from that stills previous run. The middle cut from this intermediate still is then sent to the spirit still where it is mixed with the contents of the low wines receiver and the feints and the foreshots from the previous spirit still run. Talk about complicated!

The final spirit is then run through external chilled worm tubs and creates a big, meaty, savory, gluey and sulphury end product, which is then, more often than not, dumped into sherry casks. For many people this style of spirit is ideal for maturing in sherry casks as the meatiness of the spirit mingles well with the rich dried fruit from the cask and to a certain extent I believe that is true, however, as you have probably figured out, that I’m not the world’s biggest fan of sherry monsters, because, after a while, they all begin to taste the same.

This may seem like a somewhat crass comment to make, but when you bear in mind that the oak cask in which the spirit is matured in can have a huge bearing upon the flavor profile of the finished whisky, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if you stick your spirit into first fill Oloroso casks, it’s going to taste predominantly of…… well, you don’t need to be a genius to figure out the rest of that sentence. Therefore, in order to get an idea of the ‘distillery character’, you need to turn to the independents, as they release plenty of American oak aged examples and by and large, the character of the spirit is indeed quite meaty, heavy, oily and sometimes, slightly hard work.

(Image Copyright James Mortimer Photography)