Review #100: Benriach 36yr 1976/2013, OB for Whiskysite, 40.1% abv, Cask #3012, refill hogshead, 118 bottles

happy birthday

So, I started this blog for roughly two sets of reasons. One was that both my memory and my notebook were getting more and more muddled, and I needed some way of keeping them straight. (Which of the Jim Beam Small Batch Collection can't I stand? How many attempts have I made in looking for the perfect middle-aged Tomatin or Glen Garioch? I don't know, but's it's rather easier with tags.) Not only couldn't I remember everything, but I couldn't even sort out my notes for anything. The other set of reasons involved all the sample bottles I did or didn't have. I'm not a big drinker at all, so much of what I love about whisky comes from diversity rather than quantity. This leaves me looking for samples, but at the same time torn between treating the samples as too precious to ever open (and thereby make disappear forever) because no particular occasion merits it, and voraciously opening all the samples in rapid succession. This blog was a way to find a happy medium.

I thought I would try to take about a hundred sets of notes over a year's time, and here I am, on the one-year anniversary of the first post, about to write review #100. So success! I haven't actually accomplished anything, I still don't remember anything, but it's been a pleasant path, and I still have some whisky left.

anyway, to the whisky ...

Nose: intensely fruity -- very ripe nectarines and lychee, tangerines, some tangy melon, a honeycomb, and wisps of wood smoke. Some smaller oak notes, too: vanilla, mint, and well, wood. Overall, though, it's fruitier than fruit, and then honeyed and floral.

Palate: becomes more tropical but less fruity and more honeyed.  And there's an interesting sharp edge -- some wet hay and sour but spicy wood.

Finish: the honey and wood become relatively more prominent, but the fruit really runs deep. Eventually the fruit peters out, though, and there's something almost mentholly remaining.


This one makes me happy.

score: 92