Benromach 10 — Smoke in Speyside
By Rafi Mercer
Speyside is often thought of as the home of sweetness — honey, orchard fruit, sherry richness. But Benromach 10 reminds us that the region’s past was more varied. Once, many Speyside whiskies carried a thread of peat, a faint smokiness that tied them to Highland and coastal traditions. Benromach has revived that style, and the 10-year-old bottling is its calling card: a whisky that balances malt sweetness with a smoky twist, a Speyside that speaks both of fruit and fire.
The distillery’s history begins in 1898, in the town of Forres. Over the years it changed hands, fell silent, and was eventually revived in the 1990s by Gordon & MacPhail, one of Scotland’s most respected independent bottlers. Their vision was clear: to produce whisky in the older Speyside style, with long fermentation, direct-fired stills, and a trace of peat smoke in the barley. The result is a whisky that feels both nostalgic and fresh — familiar Speyside richness, sharpened by smoke.
In the glass, Benromach 10 shines copper-gold. The nose opens with toffee, green apple, and malt, wrapped in gentle smoke and spice. On the palate, the whisky shifts between sweetness and savour: honey, red apple, and caramel balanced by pepper, nutmeg, and a flicker of bonfire smoke. The finish is medium-long, with fruit and oak lingering beneath a smoky wisp. The texture is firm but not heavy, a whisky built on contrast rather than extremes.
Its importance in the Tracks & Tales Guide to the Top 50 Whiskies lies in that balance. Benromach 10 proves that Speyside can carry more than sweetness. It reintroduces an older voice to the region, one that speaks of hearth fires as well as orchards, of barley malt as much as oak cask. It is whisky that shows how tradition can be revived, not as nostalgia but as living character.
Its musical parallel is King Tubby’s Dub From the Roots. Released in 1975, it is a foundational dub record — raw, stripped-back, experimental. Tubby took existing rhythms and rebuilt them with echo, reverb, and space, creating music that felt familiar yet transformed. Like Benromach 10, it was about revisiting tradition and reshaping it, adding smoke and shadow to known forms. Both whisky and album create depth by subtraction, by leaving space for flavour or sound to resonate.
In a listening bar, the pairing creates contrast and flow. A dram of Benromach 10 rests in hand as Tubby’s basslines roll through the speakers, the whisky’s sweetness echoing the rhythm, its smoke tracing the reverb’s shadows. The music pulls apart structure, just as the whisky pulls Speyside away from its clean reputation and back into something more elemental. Together, they create atmosphere that is both familiar and disorienting, like remembering something long forgotten.
Benromach 10 is not a whisky of luxury or show. It is a whisky of craft, of character, of place. It proves that Speyside’s story is broader than its reputation, and that peat and smoke can belong here as much as honey and fruit. For many, it becomes a gateway to rediscovery — a dram that redefines what Speyside can mean.
And perhaps the next step is to drink it in a bar that understands that duality — a place where reggae and dub records roll like smoke, where bottles are chosen for character, not fame, where sweetness and fire meet in the air. Because Benromach 10, like Dub From the Roots, reminds us that revival is not about copying the past; it is about bringing its voice back into the present, alive and resonant.
Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters. For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe, or click here to read more.
