What is a BenRiach Cask Edition?
Cask Edition is BenRiach's single-cask series: each bottling is drawn from one cask chosen by Master Blender Rachel Barrie from the distillery's cask collection, then bottled at natural cask strength without chill filtration or added colour. Bottles are hand-numbered and the label carries the cask number, the vintage, the bottling year and the age. Releases are made one cask at a time and are often sold in a single market.
Is BenRiach peated or unpeated?
Both. BenRiach is one of very few Speyside distilleries that produces peated and unpeated spirit at the same site, and it also runs a triple-distilled batch once a year. That means the style of any given Cask Edition depends on the cask rather than on the distillery, and the label states it — so two BenRiach bottlings of the same age can be smoky or not smoky.
Do two BenRiach Cask Editions from the same year taste the same?
No, and the differences are large. Among the documented 1994 Cask Editions, one was aged in a Pedro Ximenez puncheon, another in an Oloroso puncheon, another in a Tokaji hogshead and another in virgin oak, with bottling strengths ranging from about 52.6% to 56.3% and outturns from 211 bottles to 656. Because each release is one cask, the vintage tells you when the spirit was made and almost nothing about how it tastes.