I have tasted lots of whiskies from BenRiach Distillery over the years, but have only shared my tasting notes on one of them – the 12 YO Sherry Wood (read here).
A few words about the distillery:
As progressive Speyside whisky distillers, BenRiach crafts unpeated, peated and triple distilled malt whisky and holds some of the most experimental casks in Speyside. Small wonder the distillery team have nicknamed the distillery‘The Lab’.
We are one of just two remaining distilleries in Speyside to distill whisky using malted barley from its own onsite floor maltings, a time honoured method that is celebrated for one month each year.
This is what they say about the whisky:
Unusual for a Speyside malt, the BenRiach LATADA is distilled from PEATED malted barley. The whisky has been matured in American oak casks, then finished in MADEIRA CASKS. ‘Latada’ is the name of the traditional trellised vine system on the island of Madeira where the vines are laid out horizontally above the ground on low trellises. Bottled at natural colour and non chill filtered.
Latada is bottled at 46 ABV.
It is available in Norway at NOK 1 399,90.
Peaty and perfumed on the nose. It smells almost like peated Grønnsåpe – the soap you use to wash the floor – scented with pine needle. Light on the palate. Peaty. Vanilla and sugar. Very sweet. The finish is peaty. Salt and vanilla. Perfume. Not complex. I think this whisky would have been better without the peat, actually. To me the peat is not integrated and does not work very well with the Madeira cask.
My score: nose 17 / taste 20 / finish 19 / balance 18 = 74
Image from The Whisky World.
– Tone
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