Benriach 1976 - 27 Year Old - First Cask - Single Cask 9535

Benriach distillery was founded in 1897 but was closed in 1900 and remained in mothballs for over six decades. The distillery reopened in 1965 under owners Glenlivet, who were acquired by Canadian distillers Seagram in 1978. Seagram was dismantled in 2001, and Benriach was sold by new owners Pernod Ricard in 2004 to a consortium led by Billy Walker, who established the distillery as a top class single malt whisky brand before eventually selling it to Brown Forman in 2016.

Seagram’s neglectful tenure as stewards of Benriach yielded only a mundane 10-year-old official bottling; by contrast, the Walker era saw a flood of extraordinary single cask editions, with the 1976 vintage confirmed as one of the distillery’s greatest. Walker also popularised Benriach’s more heavily peated spirit, which had been produced since 1972. Top class 1960s and 1970s vintage Benriach whisky has been independently bottled by Gordon & MacPhail, Duncan Taylor and Signatory Vintage among others.

The First Cask range was a prolific series of single malt whisky bottlings by the UK’s largest mail order wine company Direct Wines Ltd, owner of Laithwaite’s and The Sunday Times Wine Club. From the early 1990s until the mid-Noughties Direct Wines released dozens of outstanding single cask whiskies annually under the First Cask label, almost all of which were bottled at 46%.

These whiskies were not particularly highly sought-after on release, probably because they were only sold online through a wine club.  Back then, of course, it was not widely known that the casks had been sourced from Signatory Vintage, which would certainly have raised their profile among whisky fans. Nowadays, although still frequently excellent value at auction, the First Cask collection - which includes hundreds of long-aged whiskies from distilleries including Brora, Port Ellen, Ardbeg and Macallan - is finally getting the recognition it deserves.