Benriach 12 yo 1969 Gordon & MacPhail Connoisseurs Choice 40% vs Benriach 36 yo 1976 / 2012 #963 for The Whisky Agency 49.6%
Benriach 12 yo 1969 Gordon & MacPhail Connoisseurs Choice 40%
Fruit in succulent tropical hues of reds and oranges, hazily spread over stony earth and hay like a worked field at sunset. Thin honey, ginger, green tea and an oxalic acid bite, making it more toothy than its 40%. The surprising weight wears well and materializes an otherwise airy fruit. Wisps of smoke chase the finish. Perhaps an early herald of the great whiskies Benriach would be putting out in the decades after. 89 pts
Benriach 36 yo 1976 / 2012 #963 for The Whisky Agency 49.6%
This one is a little bizarre as it screams a sticky concoction of black tea, dried leather, sweet jam and licorice candy. All round heavy. On the tongue, it feels like a thick goo of cough syrup, molasses and mentholated lozenges. Its liquefied Hacks cough candy basically, and potent enough not to have more than a little pour at a go. Medicinal barks, pine resin and burnt leather plus an oak tree’s worth of oak tannins. Any fruitiness there is, which might just be but for this heaviness, is dominated by the sherry. Sherryheads, this one’s for you. 90 pts
Whiskyrific RSS
- Millburn 36 yo 1969 / 2005 Douglas Laing #DL2152 50% vs Glenburgie 40 yo 1963 / 2003 Signatory #4751 56.4%
- Ben Nevis 23 yo 1996 / 2019 Single Malts of Scotland for the Nectar #536 51.3% vs A Speyside Distillery 32 yo 1989 / 2022 Thompson Bros 51.4%
- Brora 22 yo 1972 / 1995 Rare Malts 61.1% vs Brora 22 yo 1972 / 1995 Rare Malts 58.7%
- Talimburg 19 yo 1986 / 2005 The Whisky Fair #1485 45.9% vs Talisker 20 yo 1981 / 2002 62%
- Caol Ila 12 yo Bulloch Lade for Zenith 43% vs Caol Ila 30 yo 1979 / 2010 Berry Bros #4604/5 55.6%
- Clynelish 29 yo 1965 Whyte & Whyte 52.1%
- Brora 21 yo 1982 / 2003 Signatory #416 58.4% vs Clynelish 27 yo 1982 / 2009 Synch Eli Daily Dram 46%
- Dornoch 5 yo 2017 / 2023 #46 ‘Jasper Broers’ 57.9% vs Shizuoka ‘private cask’ 2017 / 2022 #2017-108 61%
- Clynelish 26 yo 1993 / 2020 Carn Mor #11215 52.7% vs Bowmore 17 yo 2004 /2021 SMWS 3.327 ‘Siren’s Song’ 57.1%
- Talisker 25 yo ‘Bottle TA25 3987’ 45.8% ~ bottle code L0296CM004 bottled 2020 vs Ledaig 11 yo 2008 / 2019 The Swan Song & 1BRD #700104 58.7%
whiskyrific 