[Speyside] BenRiach 12 Years The Twelve Review

BenRiach 12 The Twelve runs three casks - sherry, bourbon, port - in parallel, and the three streams actually pull together instead of fighting each other. At this price that combination is rare. Rachel Barrie’s blending shows here.

BenRiach and The Twelve

• 46% ABV / non-chill filtered, no added colour
• Casks: three-cask maturation - sherry + bourbon + port
• Distillery: south of Elgin in Speyside, founded 1898
• Owner: Brown-Forman (since 2016), master blender Rachel Barrie

BenRiach started up in 1898, closed after two years, then sat silent for 65 years. Billy Walker (the guy who also brought Glendronach back) picked it up in 2004, and from there the lineup took shape. Brown-Forman acquired it later and the current lineup fell into place. It’s a Speyside distillery, but the multi-cask approach pulls it deeper than the typical Speyside profile.

BenRiach core range

BenRiach runs unpeated and peated lines in parallel - not that common for a Speyside.

• The Original Ten (10 Years) - entry tier. Three-cask maturation too
• The Twelve (12 Years) - today’s subject. Three-cask complexity fully opens up here
• The Smoky Ten / Smoky Twelve - peated Speyside, a rare niche
• 21 / 25 / 30 Years - long-matured premium tier
• Malting Season - limited release that leans on their floor malting heritage

Tasting notes

Nose

Dried fruit right up front. Sticky, dense. Sherry sweetness underneath doing the base work. There’s a maple-syrup style sweetness on top, with oak supporting underneath and a small lift of spice keeping it from going one-note. Port casks bring a faint hint of berry too. Give it some time in the glass and the layers open up one at a time.

Palate

Sweet and tasty on the first sip. Sherry sweetness jumps in fast. Apple and pear follow, with a brush of orange peel citrus. Mid-palate the bourbon cask kicks in - vanilla and oak cutting the sherry sweetness, and the balance holds. No alcohol burn at 46%, and the texture in the mouth stays soft.

Finish

Hazelnut nuttiness comes up first, then a mocha coffee bitterness trailing behind. Port cask berry sweetness rides on the tail and fills out the finish. Medium length, but the sweetness-plus-nut combo lingers longer than the length suggests.

Food pairings

• Dark chocolate - hooks straight into the mocha and hazelnut of the finish. 70%+ cacao is the sweet spot
• Dried fruit plate (cranberry, fig) - just repeats the sherry cask character on the side, classic move

Verdict

The real pitch for BenRiach 12 is that it stuffs sherry, bourbon, and port into one bottle at this price, and the three of them actually get along. Against same-price-tier sherry casks - Glenfarclas 15 is a straight-down-the-line sherry one-trick (in a good way), and BenRiach is the three-cask, multi-direction version. For a fraction of the price of Macallan 12 Sherry Oak, this much satisfaction is hard to argue with. Not many bottles beat it at this tier.

If you like sherry-leaning whisky but can’t keep buying the expensive ones, BenRiach 12 is a very reasonable daily drinker to keep around.

Overall: ★★★★★ ★★★★★ 3.9 / 5