Exclusive Malts Benrinnes 11 Year Old Scotch Review

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B+

Benrinnes is one of the oldest distilleries in Scotland, with whisky first being made at the Aberlour area site in 1826, just a few years after the Crown began issuing licenses for whisky production. That site was washed away in a flood and refounded in 1835 as Lyne of Ruthrie, which went bankrupt, came into new ownership and was renamed Benrinnes.

In a story so familiar to the Scotch industry, ownership changed many times over the almost two centuries of operation. Farming at the property stopped rather late, in the 1950s, and they stopped doing their own maltings in the 1980s. Eventually Benrinnes came into the possession of Diageo, and remains part of their Scotch empire today, with most of their output going into bottles of Johnnie Walker and J&B. The only official bottling is the Flora & Fauna range. As is the case with distilleries used mostly to furnish stock for blends, if you wish to become genuinely acquainted with Benrinnes malt, you need to go to independent bottlings like this 2006 distilled, 11 year old from the Creative Whisky Company.

The Scotch
Bottled at 49.1% ABV, this comes from a refill PX-Sherry hogshead. Given that, the coloring of the liquid is a bit of a surprise. In the glass, it’s golden, where one might expect it to be darker. The liquid drops forks of tears, clusters of two or three or four.

The nose, however, is very Sherried indeed. The scent is equal measure of a plate of sugar, butter and ginger cookies on the one hand and a bowl of mixed, dried fruits on the other. The flavor is tarter, more in the vein of richly stewed, thickly seasoned fruits getting ready for use in a cake, with a generous helping of citric acid added for good measure, tinged with dried grass and oak. The oak is what comes up on the finish, rising and then fading to leave a long, lingering dose of the stewed fruits.

This bottling of Benrinnes isn’t quite a Sherry bomb, but it delivers a pretty hefty dose of Sherry goodness just the same. It’s flavorful, with a greater than middling body, and quite approachable for an almost 50% Scotch whisky.

The Price
Listings with online retailers are between $100 and $110.