Benriach - First Cask 1976 - Speyside - 27 year old 46% vol

This is bottle 12, from cask 9533. Distilled 23rd December 1976.

From old tasting notes: on the nose apples, green bananas; palate sweet and creamy; light to medium bodied and a vanilla finish.

Colour: light amber

.Nose: as expected it’s a rather wonderful and nervous concentration of tropical and green fruits, wood spices, soft waxes and various oils and wood resins. Typical 76 Benriach. There are some pleasing wee tertiary notes of ripe melon, lamp oil and rye bread and orange cocktail bitters as well. Globally rather beautiful and well composed.

Mouth: it’s undeniably soft but I’m impressed by the ‘togetherness’ of it all. Lots of hessian, cola cubes, lime oil, eucalyptus travel sweets, menthol and coconut. The waxiness is still there, almost like a glue holding everything together in the background.

Finish: again impressive with a good length and plenty resinous citrus peel notes, kumquats, lemon sweets, cough medicine and a little white pepper. Comments: quite remarkable really in that the low abv didn’t seem to hinder it at any point. It’s not the best 76 Benriach by any stretch, but it’s the sort of dram you could drink a whole bottle of by mistake should you be suitably motivated.