Batch 223

A superbly dark colour, the result of 13 years in a first-fill Sherry cask. Sticky, molasses-rich and dense, loaded with roasted figs, prunes, flambéed banana, rum cake and candied ginger.

Mouth-coating and waxy, a signature Benrinnes trait, with a decadent sweetness of brown sugar, Sherry and blood orange. There’s also plum sauce, sticky toffee pudding and Christmas cake loaded with sultanas and raisins, with a generous layer of marzipan. There’s enough oak to provide grip and to avoid the sweetness from dominating, and while the baking spices sweep across the mid-palate, they subside graciously to finish on an Armagnac-like note.

Slightly dry, but still intensely sticky and fruity.

A lesson in balance between distillery character and a cask that can often easily overwhelm the liquid. Just superb.

The perfect toast. I hope you had the Time of Your Life.

Quite fusty and heavy at first, even after just 10 years in cask. Lots of oak spice, dried fruit wheels and sultanas, with this overriding, substantial leathery quality that threatens to stamp out a glimmer of energetic youthfulness. Give it time, and the leather blanket lifts to reveal fresher, fruitier aromas of strawberries and cream, baked apples, figs drizzled with Mānuka honey, and orange oils.

Strawberry mousse, salted caramel sauce and baked apples, but then the spice takes hold. Cinnamon, anise, pepper… it gets quite spicy quite rapidly. Water calms things considerably. Now the fruit is discernable: there’s stewed apples, orange zest, berry fruits, even a touch of unripe banana. The mouth-coating texture holds, even with water, and although the wood spice remains, it’s happy to play a supporting role.

Burnt caramel and toffee apples.

A firecracker of a whisky, this Bunnahabhain has taken that first-fill Sherry influence and run with it, after only 10 years. Worth seeking out.

Playing Hide and Seek in the tannery.

Gentle and sweet, with a soft waft of peat smoke entwined with aromas of fresh lemon meringue pie, barley sugar and hay. There’s a hint of sweaty cheese – Emmental, I think – but don’t get me wrong, it’s not unpleasant; it adds some savoury balance and weight.

Light and delicate, with bonfire smoke wafting in and out, dancing around estery top notes of banana leaf and lemon squash. Soft and sweet at first, some alcohol spice lifts and lowers, playing its own role in the dance. Then things take a savoury turn with notes of thyme and barbecued cheese.

Smoked cheese. The one that comes as a sausage. It lingers.

I really like this one. It’s odd, potentially divisive, but super-interesting.

Fighting over the last piece of Edam in the Hall of the Mountain King.

Tons of fresh green fruit: Granny Smiths, gooseberries, kiwi. Lots of top citrus notes, lemon zest and mandarins, layered over deeper tones of barley sugar, caramel, vanilla and clotted cream.

Soooo fruity! Baked apples, sultanas and poached pears, then along comes a zap of mouthwatering wood spice almost blowing the fruit away. It falls apart a little with water and becomes much drier, the oak and fruit separate, making things a little muddy and confused, while a bitter grapefruit note sweeps in on the tip of the tongue.

The fruit disappears quite quickly, leaving just a tingle of anise. Disappointingly flat.

If you can handle the heat, don’t add water.

Clutching hold of a flower in a Hurricane.

Light copper in colour, this is at first somewhat heavy and unyielding, before dark honey and dripping wood resin come to the fore. Hints of peppery florals and rich mandarin, then honeysuckle and, in time, more conventional aromas of pot still spice with an edge of sour cherry. It’s at once precise and uncompromising. Give it longer in the glass and you get a more welcoming rich creaminess. Water tames and soothes, allowing more of that pot still character to shine through.

Dark forces at work. The floral aspect tries briefly to assert itself, but has to give way to a drying, bitter dark chocolate kick. There’s a Jalapeño-like heat to this, which combines nicely with that persistent, brooding chocolateyness. Water brings out more cereal and hazelnut, but the bitterness becomes a little too much.

Long, exotically fruited, but dry.

Single pot still, matured in ex-Bourbon and Sherry, then finished in acacia casks, and it’s almost too bold for its own good. Acacia can be quite a subtle influence on white wine, but it’s almost aggressive here.

It rises from the deep like a Leviathan.

Disarmingly pale, wafting fresh-mown hay, a pinch of dry spice and white pepper. That peppery character slowly builds, accompanied by a note of clipped laurel. There’s a youthful zip to everything. All is light, lifted, but with some slightly brittle weight and structure beneath. Intriguing. Water is a little dumbing, accentuating that sensation of youth. There’s orange cordial, but always a slightly drying vegetal kick.

A sunlit meadow carpeted in wild flowers, before a precise and pungent retronasal aroma of lily takes hold. The pot still spice is uncharacteristically restrained here. The lily note apart, this isn’t an obvious whiskey, and that’s a major part of its charm. Water brings roundness, but neutralises much of the floral aspect while allowing more of the pot still to come through.

Prickling heat, pleasing acidity.

Single pot still, matured in ex-Bourbon and Sherry, then finished in (rather porous) French wild cherry casks. You might need time to get to know this. I did. It’s idiosyncratic, but what I first took for rawness now feels more like subtlety, and there’s a lot more flavour here than you might think. This is as shy and elusive as the Acacia finish is assertive – and together they offer a kind of yin and yang of Irish Distillers’ continued pushing of the boundaries with its Method and Madness range. Both are well worth tasting.

Flavours cascade like Bright Horses.