Whisky of the Year – Benromach 15 : The Whisky Exchange

Benromach 15 Year Old Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky

Benromach 15 Year Old has been named Whisky of the Year 2020 by Whisky Exchange customers, who voted both online and at our tasting event in London.

This means that it's been chosen as the best whisky that's:

below £65
not cask strength
an ongoing release

For this year's competition customers and staff voted for their favourite whiskies, and the top six made it into a shortlist.

The whiskies were then all tasted by customers who either bought our Whisky of the Year 2020 blind tasting pack and cast their vote online, or who attended our annual judging event in London on 18 November.

70cl / 43%

£52.95

£48.95

£69.93 per litre

Introduced to the Benromach line-up in 2015, this lusciously rich Speyside single malt is a fruity, chocolatey and lightly smoky dram that will delight fans of traditional styles. Matured in a mixture of ex-sherry casks and ex-bourbon casks, with a greater emphasis on sherry than the Benromach 10 Year Old, this is a charming reflection of Speyside both past and present.

- Nose
  
  Chocolate, caramel and wood smoke lead to a hint of new-trainer-sole rubber and rich maltiness – Shreddies cereal and malt extract. The smokiness winds its way through the gaps, becoming wispy coal smoke trickling out of a stove filled with baking sultana-studded apples.
- Palate
  
  Rich, thick and rounded, with sultanas and raisins quickly overwhelmed by spicy peat smoke. The baked apples from the nose are revealed as the smoke blows away, sprinkled with spicy cinnamon and mint leaves. Chocolate-covered liquorice and Hob Nob biscuits appear, along with a touch of charcoal.
- Finish
  
  Singed fruit cake and sultana-heavy fruit loaf fade slowly away to leave tingling menthol, leafy mint and cocoa.
- Comment
  
  Peatier than expected, but with all smoke wrapped up in fruit and chocolate. Supremely well-balanced, with a long and leafy finish.

Founded just before the turn of the 20th century, Benromach made whisky intermittently for the next 85 years, changing hands frequently during that time.

It was closed in 1983, one of the many victims of a glut of Scotch whisky on the market, and lay silent for 11 years. Gordon & MacPhail, well known to whisky fans for their independent bottlings, then bought Benromach and set about creating a new distillery within the shell of the old.

It took the company several years to create the distillery and the spirit they wanted, and in consequence it wasn't until the late 1990s before their first spirit was made. Since then Benromach's philosophy has remained the same: to recreate a traditional style of Speyside whisky that's elegant, nuanced and offers just a wisp of smoke, something which would have been created by the occasional use of peat in barley malting in decades gone by.

215cl / 31.4%

£146.85

£133

£61.86 per litre

Try all three winners and see why they are our favourites of the year. Whisky from a traditional Speyside distillery, rum from a producer that's just now stepping into the limelight, and Champagne from the 'king of Pinot Noir' – three very different and exciting bottles.