Keeping the Craft Alive: Benriach Malting Season
Benriach celebrates a milestone in the method with a unique, Speyside bottling
Celebrating traditional methods dating back to the earliest days of Benriach Distillery, Benriach Malting Season will be the first expression in a century to be produced entirely using barley malted from the Speyside distillery’s historic floor maltings.
The floor malting method is a highly skilled process requiring the delicate and skilled hand of Benriach’s team of dedicated craftspeople. After being steeped in water, the barley is spread across the malting room floor and turned by hand over several days to allow for optimum germination of the barley. Using their keen eye, the malting team decides when the barley is ready to move to the kiln and the iconic pagoda-shaped chimney comes alive.
The first edition of Benriach Malting Season is two-cask matured in bourbon and virgin oak barrels to bring out the wholesome, creamy flavour we find in the distillery’s floor malted spirit, giving a beautiful barley gold colour to the liquid. The expression boasts a rich aroma of barley sugar, almond fudge and poached orchard apple with smooth, rounded flavours of vanilla and honeyed pear, with a lasting nuttiness of slowly kilned malt.
For each new edition of Malting Season, Master Blender Rachel Barrie, will carefully select the type of barley and bottling strength, making each annual edition a benchmark in its own right. This inaugural release is made from concerto barley and has a bottling strength of 48.7% ABV.
