GlenDronach & Benriach with Rachel Barrie

 A tasting with the master blender for GlenDronach and BenRiach? well ok, that works for me.

BenRiach The Original 10yo 43% (served with smoked ham rillette, peach & apricot relish, toasted ciabatta)

N: apple, citrus, fruit salad, spritzic

P: fruity, light, pears, marshmallows, spicy

F: short-med, spikey, hint of pepper/salt?

6.5/10 nice dram, just not really too interesting? 

The GlenDronach 12yo 43% (maple glazed duck breast, carrot and ginger puree, poached cherries). 

N: sherry, leather, complex, warm, honey

P: lollies, sweet, perfume, sherry, spikey

F: med-long, dry

6/10. a marriage of PX and oloroso casks for this one, nice quaffable dram.

The GlenDronach "revival" 15yo 46% (seared venison, minted sweet potato, cranberry and cherry relish)

N: chocolate (maybe white), caramel, marshmallow, orange, tobaco, fruit, scallops

P: spikey, hot, poor balance, chocolate, strong, fruity

F: hot, long, dry

6/10 increased PX and reduced oloroso.

BenRiach 25yo 46% (confit pork belly, waldorf salad, quince mayo).

N: sweet, caramel, sherry, show polish, menthol, smoke

P: long, big complex, leather, sherry

F: big long prickly

8/10 this one had additional madeira casks in it, it's lovely. big, complex, showed its age well.

GlenDronach Cask Strength Batch 11 59.8% (Crispy fried katsu chicken, Japanese bulldog sauce)

N: rubber, complex, honey, menthol

P: sweet, port, ?too sweet?, leathery

F: hot, complex

8/10 also liked this, had increased oloroso and reduced PX and is roughly a 10yo

BenRiach smoke season Double Cask matured 52.8% (teriyaki chicken skewers, toasted sesame kewpie mayo)

N: smoke, bacon, peat, medicinal, sherry, suppurating wounds 

P: ash, dry, peat, sweet

F: long, dry

7/10 I had high hopes for this as the old benriach solstice is one of my favourite whiskies, this was good. without being great.

Overall, disappointing. Both labels have some amazing whiskies, but most of these were standard releases, with the exception of the the 25 and cask strength. That seemed a missed opportunity, if you've got the blender out, and Rachel Barrie is famous, to trot out something interesting for her fan group. She's a good speaker, but we left after 2.5hours which seemed a little too long, lots of stories but it was hard to hear the questions which made understanding the answers a bit tricky. Special vote of fuck you to the company reps (?) who spent most of their time making pointless remarks to themselves, making it even harder to hear. 

I guess this is one reason we like the Regional tastings, better selection of whisky and fewer twats.