pop & pour

All Speyside all the time. Day 2!

Another December day, another whisky, another representative from Speyside (which, if you’re wondering, is in northeast Scotland and is home to many well-known distilleries that start with “Glen”:  Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, Glenfarclas and more!).  Tonight’s treat is the Benriach 16 Year single malt whisky, and, unsurprisingly for a scotch that is basically a next door neighbour of the whisky that I opened last night on Day 1 of Advent, it has some clear stylistic similarities to the Linkwood 15.  Both are open, welcoming, sweet, non-threatening scotches, whisky gateway drugs, and both provide easy enjoyment at a value price — the Benriach would clock in at around $80 for a full bottle.  This obviously made me dream of dessert, as I got honeycomb, tarte tatin and bananas foster to go with cream, matchsticks and a slight note of wet moss lingering around the edges.  Quite nice, but I have to give the nod to the Linkwood in this Speyside battle.  Now I sort of wonder if this calendar is going to be an orderly tour around Scotland.  Only one way to find out…check back tomorrow!