Benriach The Smoky Ten 10 Year Old Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky

BenRiach The Smoky Ten 10 Year Old Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky replaced Curiositas, and it was rebuilt rather than renamed. Spirit from barley smoked with wood-rich Highland peat is married with unpeated whisky, then aged at least 10 years in bourbon barrels, Jamaican rum casks, and toasted virgin oak. The rum is what you taste as brown-sugar sweetness and a waxy, herbal edge under the smoke; the toasted oak adds spice. It is 92 proof, and the color comes from the casks. Whisky Advocate reviewed it as the Curiositas successor.

Official notes are ripe orchard-fruit syrup, smoked honey, and oak spice, then smoked applewood, honeyed maple, and spiced pear, with fruit and smoked oak lingering. Whisky Advocate tasted light peat and hand-rolled tobacco, tropical fruit, stone fruit, vanilla, new leather, and dark chocolate, closing on oak, black pepper, salt, and earthy peat. Distiller found the peat salty and intermediate beside apricot, candied orange peel, and butterscotch. The body is medium and a little waxy, and the smoke lifts again on a long finish.