Benriach Archives - Rant And Whisky

Over the weekend of 4^th and 5^th of March I got to go to New Zealand’s premier whisky event, Dramfest.

Before I went, my wife told me to treat this like an adventure – very good advice, as you will see.

Saturday morning flight to Christchurch and off to the Te Pai Convention Centre at 12:30 to be meet a queue of other Whisky addicts. Te Pai has plenty of space and the show was well laid out on one level (t as the afternoon went on, that was good as everybody became relaxed in various degrees of inattention).

After a lovely bagpipe intro, the stands were allowed to pour.

The Show

This year I decided to forgo the master classes and instead just do the stands. At previous Dramfests I have gone to every master class available; this time I wanted to spend more time just mingling.

On Saturday I managed to try about forty drams, the majority cask strength (the Wellington Curse).

Saturday picks

My pick for the day – and indeed as one of the stand outs for Dramfest – was the Cotswolds Founders Choice at a hefty 60.5% ABV. My notes record just the word “Wow” under Nose, with the same recorded in Taste. I don’t usually limit myself to a few words, but this was fantastic.

The next memorable stand was the Alistair Walker Whisky Company. They had two drams that stood out: the Infrequent Flyers Benriach at 57.2% and the Glenrothes at 62.8%. I feel the Benriach nudged ahead and indeed shares my first equal as the best dram of the weekend with the Founders Choice.

The impact of 40 high-strength whiskies during Saturday afternoon created a few internal GPS issues.

A surprising Saturday find for me was the Sagamore Spirit stand. Sagamore make Rye whiskey, and I like Rye whiskey. Two drams on the stand stood out, mainly by not having that minty taste you sometimes get with Rye. I found one not listed in the menu but that had a very much a Wow moment – the Sherry Finish Rye finished in PX sherry barrels at 52%. It came at you in two layers on the taste, and I hope Whisky Galore gets more in!

The Adventure – aka Pat’s Magical Mystery Tour

The Te Pai venue is 200 metres in a straight-ish line from our hotel – a short walk. However, the impact of 40 high-strength whiskies during Saturday afternoon created a few internal GPS issues, and getting to the hotel became a much greater challenge than anticipated.

I had walked four blocks past my hotel before I encountered another Dramfest attendee.

“Pat, you’ve gone too far. You need to turn around and go back into town.”

So I went back three blocks, then sat down thinking “This is hard work!”

There followed a text conversation with my wife (who was waiting with deteriorating patience in the hotel lobby) – refer photos below. My part in the conversation was rather confused, and my wife was not amused in the slightest. I walked the last block and saw a large neon sign identifying the hotel. Bliss.

Screen Print 1 – **Blue messages are from Mrs Pat.**

For clarity, the phrase “No funding idwa” contains typing errors.

Sunday

I started the Sunday session with the Kavalan 58.6% Port finish. It is amazing, and surprisingly better than their Sherry finish.

The New Zealanders

I was taken aback with delight by the New Zealand offerings at Dramfest, and my Sunday tour of various NZ distillers’ stands revealed some new delights.

I visited the stand of Christchurch’s own Spirits Workshop, with their 5-year-old Divergence 5 and the new bottling of the Portwood in tawny casks.

Next was the Pokeno Whisky stand. The Origin was a lovely smooth dram, but the pick was the Prohibition Porter from a first fill bourbon single cask – dark chocolate all the way and very smooth indeed. I had to leave the stand; staying was far too far too tempting.

Then on to Waiheke Whisky. I had sort of written Waiheke off a few months back after tasting some of their sample minis. After tasting their offerings at Dramfest, I admit I definitely was wrong. They gave me the Dramfest special bottling at 46%. There is amazing mouth feel and, typical of NZ peat, just a hint of sea, smooth with a long finish.

I was then given a dram called Cantankerous which they said was for a cantankerous person. Moi??? Again, this dram was not on the menu. It is excellent and well worth finding – if you can.

Going home

No worries getting back to the hotel this time.

It is always a pleasure to go to a world class event here in NZ and, as usual, the team at Whisky Galore have done an superb job in a great venue.

Silly Statistics

Because we were interested (and a little bit bored) we analysed some of the numbers in the Dramfest catalogue. They make for quite interesting reading.

The total price of all bottle in the catalogue: $34,320.76

The average prince: $138.39

The highest orice: the Glenfiddich “Grand Cru” 23yo 40% $592.00
Second: the Buffalo Trace Stagg JR 64.2% $401.00
Third: The Whisky Cellar Cambus Single Grain33yo 52.5% $386.00

On the (probably slightly under attended) Black Tot rum stand on Sunday, we used three bottles of each of the two drams we had. Assuming the same level of consumption for all the other stands over the two days, that is $205,900 worth of whisky consumed!

And that wildly undependable calculation:
– undoubtedly understates the number of bottles used on many of the stands,
– does not include the values of the “under the counter” bottles, or
– the value of merchandise sales from the front shop.

From Pat

The most interesting part of a whisky bottle is usually its contents.

But, as I revealed in my last epistle, a bottle has a whole netherworld that no-one really notices.

Last time I wrote I talked about the variety of corks and stoppers. Now I’m turning attention to the markings at the other end of the bottle.

Spoiler Alert
Before checking the markings on the base of your whisky bottle, check that the cork or stopper is firmly in at the top!

No good story ever started with “We were eating drinking this tea …”

This story started recently when we were consuming a few drams to celebrate my son’s 21^st birthday. As it does in these situations, the talk turned to the bottom of whisky bottles.

We became a bit fixated with what the confusing array of markings on the bottom may reveal.

This was quickly followed by some remarkably ill-informed discussion (read “guesses”) as everyone gave their theories on what the markings meant.

The thing about good whisky is that it allows – nay, encourages – the mind loose to dwell on trivial things that quickly can take on a life of their own.

The Search Begins

A day or so after the birthday bash Uncle Google and I started on a few hours of research. I was looking to see if I could find out what the markings meant. The initial searches led mostly to unhelpful American sites – no assistance at all with British bottles markings

My bottle of choice was the Benriach 21 year old tawny port finish we had opened for the birthday. I found in my research was that Benriach had changed bottle suppliers since Brown Forman had bought the distillery!

My bottle, however, was from the earlier time when Billy Walker had owned Benriach.

The bottle had the following marks embossed on the bottom: LI, 2414, 700ml. 63mm, 05 and a reverse Epsilon mark.

After many web searches I arrived at the UK Government’s services and information site. There is a sub-site that has a lot of info about bottle marks, including all the UK codes for glass bottle manufacturers.

Aha, the Enigma code was tottering, if not completely broken.

Allied Glass Containers Ltd

L1 is the code for bottle manufacturers Allied Glass Containers Ltd, located in Leeds, Yorkshire.

in a highly efficient 24 hours a day environment, Allied has the ability to produce 13 million glass containers every week.

The reverse Epsilon symbol is the European Economic Community mark for conformity. Post-Brexit, new bottles sold outside the EEC will have UKCA on them instead.

On the Allied Glass Containers Ltd web site I discovered that 2414 was the project code allocated to their 750ml round Whisky shaped bottle.

700ml is the internal volume when filled to the neck plus an air gap, and 63mm is the internal diameter of the bottle.

The underscored 05 was the last piece in the puzzle.

To dig into this a bit further, I checked a few more bottles in my cabinet.

I found bottles from the same manufacturer but with different shapes and used by other distilleries. Each different bottle had its own project code, but with the same 05 number.

It seems that the 05 identifies a specific production line.

in a highly efficient 24 hours a day environment, Allied has the ability to produce 13 million glass containers every week. With 16 production lines over two sites it is extremely important to be able to identify if issues occur on any line without having to shut down the entireprocess.

Note that the production line on this photo is underscore 19 (in the bullseye of the photo), from a different production line to the bottle discussed above. The batch number is different, too.

The Allied website is a cool site if you want glass. All sizes and shapes are there, with their own project codes and details. If you have a whisky bottle made by Allied and want all the information on it, enjoy the anorak moment.

Glenmorangie Spios

This is the bottom of a Glenmorangie Spios bottle. The Allied Glass site indicates that they make for Glenmorangie (the clue is a photo of a Glenmorangie bottle on their site). However, the markings in this photograph (at about 7 o’clock) show that the bottle was made by Ardagh Glass Portland – I suspect is Portland, OR, US of A, although it’s hard to tell.

Icons of Whisky awards 2022

From the Whisky Magazine are some of the Icons of Whisky (Scotland) awards for 2022:

Distiller of the Year: The Glenturret Distillery
Sustainable Distillery of the Year: Glengoyne Distillery
Visitor Attraction of the Year: The GlenAllachie Distillery

And for Ireland:

Distiller of the Year: Waterford Distillery
Sustainable Distillery of the Year: Teeling Whiskey Distillery
Visitor Attraction of the Year: Jameson Distillery Bow Street

All regional winners now go forward to be considered for the global titles in 2022.

Tag: Benriach

Dramfest 2023 Review – Chapter 2 – The Adventures of Pat