Benriach 21 Year Old

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.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.