I  reviewed Benromach 10 Year old 100 Proof 6 months ago. I went against the majority of reviews out there and declared my big disappointment as I just couldn’t understand what’s all the fuss about and felt it was worse than the standard 10 yo. Best you go and read that review before resuming and reading the rest of this post…

OK. I assume you did your due diligence and read that post so let’s move on. A couple of months ago but well after the initial tasting and review, I tasted it again but this time I wasn’t aware it was the Benromach 10 100 proof as it was part of a blind tasting competition.

Take a look at my tasting notes I took during the blind tasting competition:

Dram #7 (Benromach 10 100 Proof 57%)

Nose: Light peat at first and then mostly sweetness, vanilla, malt!! Hint of honey, slight dried fruits, overall very restrained pointing at high ABV. After a while sweetness is stronger and there are some tannins and it becomes more Oloroso. A bit of cloves and nutmeg and light sweet peat at the background. With water: less sherry, much more honey but still with a nice dose of nutmeg. Feels young and fierce even after a few drops of water.

Palate: Sherry spices, nutmeg, dried fruits, sour berries, espresso and leather, sweet light peat & smoke. With water: same but weaker dried fruits and a bit of oak is revealed.

Finish: Long with espresso, sweet dried fruits, light peat, touch of oak. With water: less sweet. long lingering peat.

Thoughts: I liked this blind dram and wanted to get a hold of a bottle. You can understand my surprise when it was revealed to be the Benromach 10yo 100 proof – it didn’t even came close to being a blip on my radar when I tried to guess this dram due to my previous tasting! So what did I learn from it?

If whisky isn’t as good as you expected or is way off the official tasting notes, make sure you try it again from another bottle!

Despite quality control at distilleries and bottlers, there can still be some bad bottles. In the case where it was a sample you tasted, even reputable stores make mistakes when bottling samples (wrong label, etc), a bottle can be dirty or not cleaned properly, so bottom line, try again! Glad I had the chance to retry and now a bottle is in my cupboard 🙂