Benromach Distillery, Scotland     founded: 1898 | active
For more detailed mapping of the distilleries in the area from our whisky map page, use this link.

Something seems familiar at first, like opening Grandma's wardrobe there's a Narnia of smells here. The trees of this magical kingdom meet us first as we emerge from the wardrobe; pine needles, cinnamon, heather, cloves and wet straw. Then the sweet gifts of this White Witch of a whisky tempt us on! Maple syrup, toffee, green grapes, and parma violets lead us to wonder if we should betray our friends, and indeed there is something slightly acrid here, with lemon, aniseed and finally liquoice creeping in. Overall there's certainly a dessert feeling with rhubarb crumble and toffee apple assuring us that our so-called "friends" never liked us anyway...

As we complete our betrayal and excitedly take our first bite (sip) of Turkish delight (whisky) we're met with something very different from what was expected. While the base remains sweet and creamy, with butterscotch, whipped cream, vanilla ice-cream and maple syrup shouldering in from the nose, very quickly there's a medicinal note which takes hold of aspirin and paracetamol. As these balance the Lion roars and there's an explosion of spice with paprika, chili and pepper combining with the cream to hint at horseradish. As everything dies down we're left statuesque with a sharp tang of orange peel and rocket as the battle continues.

A feeling of the fireplace on the finish, with elements of all stages of our allegory of an allegory. This finish is medium and leads us from the fiery chili, paprika and pepper, back through the forbidden sweetness or Irn Bru and Christmas pudding, eventually floating off into Autumn hay as we start to doubt whether we ever really opened the wardrobe (bottle) at all... But we did, and it was probably worth it.

~£32 (70cl)

Whisky Exchange: Benromach 2002 PX   |   http://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/P-13638.aspx

We've always scored out of 10 in our group (see number in red box, below), with scores regularly given across that spectrum. The value out of 100 below is adjusted to the scale most commonly used for whisky reviews, to allow for better comparison.

80 / 100