Benromach from Polish oak
According to Keith Cruickshank, manager of the Benromach distillery, the wood of Polish oak has fantastic properties if used for maturation of Scotch whisky. It gives the liquor a depth of character. The easiest way to convince yourself of the truth of these words is to try one of the five Benromach single cask editions, which were matured in barrels made precisely from Polish oak.
The Benromach distillery has announced as many as five editions, limited by nature, each of which will be a bottling of the contents of a single barrel, made of Polish oak. Two of them, which are just hitting stores, are exclusively for the UK market, but others will be available for wider distribution.
The two editions mentioned above are liquors distilled in 2011, made from a lightly peated distillate. Both were bottled as cask strength, without the slightest interference, meaning no cold filtering and no added colored caramel.
Benromach Polish Oak Cask 771, 59.1% vol., offers aromas of Seville oranges, Christmas spices, raspberries and light smoke. In the taste we should find in it accents of raisins, milk chocolate and aniseed.
Benromach Polish Oak Cask 772, 58.6% vol., it smells of fruit compote, citrus zest, cocoa powder and mild smoke. The taste is expected to offer accents of sweet forest fruits, toffee and baked apples.
The total combined size of the two editions is 590 bottles, each of which costs the equivalent of £95 at retail.
The Benromach distillery has had a rather tumultuous history, resulting in its closure in 1983, when the Scottish distilling industry was hit hardest by the overproduction crisis. At the time, it was owned by Distillers Company Limited. And the corporations, it seems, found it easiest to get rid of the problem by eliminating the. Today's Diageo, the current incarnation of DCL tends to build distilleries and reactivate them, but four decades ago the approach was quite different. Suffice it to recall the cases of the Brora, Port Ellen, Rosebank, or Caperdonich distilleries, which only years later gained almost cult status. Benromach shared the fate of dozens of Scottish malt whisky factories and remained closed for a full decade, its equipment dismantled for spare parts to other distilleries, until eventually only empty buildings remained.
In 1993, in response to the first signs of a returning boom, a nascent interest in malt whisky per se, and finally the challenges facing independent distributors, Elgin-based Gordon & MacPhail, one of the best-known independent bottlers, decided to buy what was left of the old Benroms. It took the new owner as long as five years before the distillery was able to restart whisky production. The first distillate didn't flow from the alembics until 1998, and in 2004 the first edition of the whisky produced here, Benromach Traditional, hit the market. In 2020, Benromach was redesigned, and in 2022, Benromach owner Gordon & MacPhail launched a new distillery, built from scratch, The Cairn.
As mentioned, the first two editions of Benromach Polish Oak are intended for the British market, but in the current offer of the House of Whisky Online you can find relatively the brand's wide range of whiskies. Especially when considering the small, even boutique scale of production at Benromach, whose maximum potential is only 700,000. liters of pure alcohol per year. We recommend both contemporary editions, those from before the packaging redesign, as well as editions from the DCL era, and those from independent distributors. An amateur Benromach will find a lot of interesting facts, which we invite you to familiarize yourself with.
[05.04.2023 / photo: Benromach]