Whisky : BenRiach 10 Year SMWS 12.49 “Is this the way to Amarillo?”

Country/Region : Scotland/Speyside

ABV : 60%

Cask : Refill Hogshead (9Y), 2nd Fill Tempest Old Fashioned IPA Barrel (1Y)

Age : 10 Year (Distilled 18 March 2010)

Nose :  Malty, herbal, and fruity.  A basket full of pastries— herbal focaccia, nutty olive oil, lemon cakes, and orange shortbread.  Herbal notes continued as a bright hoppy citrus and pine came into focus.  Slightly medicinal with notes of edamame, margarin, and floor polish.

Palate :  Medium bodied with crisp tangy notes of malt, honey, and citrus.  Malty oak cakes and whole wheat toast with orange marmalade along with notes of citrus rinds, floral honey, and lemon candies.  Herbal hoppy notes appeared on the back end along with a mild medicinal herbal and floral quality.

Finish : Lingering malty pastries with hints of salt and floral hibiscus tea.

Score : 6

Mental Image : Breakfast in the Gardens

Notes : This was definitely an interesting one.  Novel cask finishes seem to be coming out of the woodwork and I was definitely intrigued by an IPA finish.  I enjoyed some of the beer cask finishing that Jameson has done, the stout cask finish was a long time favorite of mine.  It was interesting to see SMWS jazz up a few malts with interesting finishes, especially something like BenRiach which makes for a nice tabula rasa with the malty-honey character of its spirit.

I am not big into IPAs so I walked in to this with pretty low expectations.  I originally tasted this as the final bottle in a six bottle lineup, I put it at the end because I worried it would be a bit too weird.  I was definitely surprised when people loved it and rated it as one of the best drams of the evening— even I enjoyed it.  I thought some of the crisp citrus fruits and herbal quality, which I assume came from the cask, balanced nicely against the malt and kept the dram from ever feeling overly sweet.  It would have been great to actually try the beer as well to get a feel for its flavor profile and pin down the role it played.

Overall, this was an interesting experiment and quite enjoyable to drink as well.  I am still more likely to go for a whisky aged in a barrel that previously held stout or a porter— assuming I am picking a cask that previously held beer— but this was good enough that I would not totally write off the idea of including a weird finish like this again at a tasting.