This Affordable Single Malt Is My Go-To Winter Scotch

The whiskey industry is in an interesting place right now. Rye whiskeys are having a renaissance, American single malts are ascendant, and ultra-premium Scotch has never looked as sophisticated. It’s a phase ripe for experimentation, which is incredibly exciting for whiskey fans. But sometimes, when the wind is howling and the snow is falling, you just want to go back to the classics.

Enter the Benriach The Twelve, my go-to expression from one of the most interesting single malt distilleries in Scotland. For a company that’s more than 125 years old, Benriach’s lineup isn’t all buttoned-up and traditional. On one hand, they do have their flagship 10, which is an affordable sipper; on the other, Benriach released a 50-year-old peated Scotch retailing for £25,000 (about $31,500).

If you’re the type of person who can buy a super-rare bottle or new Patek Philippe days after release, then congrats. But for the rest of us, The Twelve is on the more accessible end of the spectrum. At under $60, it’s just slightly more expensive than the distillery's 10-year-old offering but still affordable.

The Benriach The Original Ten is a really good whisky, with everything that makes a Speyside Scotch special. Home to other distilleries like The Glenlivet, Glenfiddich and The Macallan, the Speyside region is a place for layered, complex Scotch thanks to the particularly hard water in the region, which is rich in dissolved minerals. That minerality lets distillers bring out the high notes in a whisky, with delicate and nimble fruit flavors.

The Twelve takes those acrobatics to the next level, with zippy light flavors that are a joy to taste. The nose has a clean, bright bouquet. Hints of baked fruit, like apricot, fly by on the medium body during a sip. A friendly, modest spice eases the finish. At 46 percent, it’s not overwhelmingly boozy—something I consider a good thing in the winter. If you’ve ever tried to stay awake next to a cozy fire with a full belly, you’ll know what I mean.

Overall, The Twelve is a classic with a twist, and that’s exactly what Benriach is good at. Founded in 1898, they’ve been a part of Speyside’s history for a long time—but also, they’ve spent a lot of those years closed, or making juice for other distilleries. The first shutdown came just two years after opening, following a notorious upset in the Scotch market called the Pattinson crash.

The tale of the crash goes like this: two brothers traded cows for booze, getting rich and borrowing beyond their means, which led to plummeting fortunes in the whisky market when creditors came calling. A number of suppliers and other companies were caught up in the commotion, and so the folks at Benriach wouldn’t produce whisky again for another 65 years.

Luckily, the distillery was put to another whisky-related use: floor malting barley. There're only a handful of distilleries that floor malt their own barley, because, like the name implies, it requires a lot of floor space for the barley to, well, malt. For more than half a century, Benriach was kept alive to feed the nearby Longmorn distillery. Then, in 1965, the stills reopened.

The second time the distillery was mothballed involved a much shorter break, from 2002 to 2004. There was only a moderate production hiccup before Billy Walker (no relation to Johnnie) and friends brought the distillery back into gear. It was ultimately sold in 2016 to Brown-Forman, which also owns Jack Daniel’s, Glenglassaugh, and Woodford Reserve.

All of these snafus and speed bumps meant that the current master blender, Rachel Barrie, had to get a little inventive. Aging in sherry casks? Sure. Aging in bourbon casks? Go for it. Aging in sherry, bourbon, and port casks? That might be a stretch in lesser hands, but Barrie—considered the first lady of Scotch, one of the country’s first female master blenders—handles it beautifully.

That combination of flavors lands The Benriach The Twelve in the perfect spot for a nice, cozy winter dram. I totally understand folks might want something heavy and smoky when the snow starts falling. But a lighter, fruitier bouquet can get you just as toasty. For me, that means a Speyside whisky, and that also means the BenRiach 12.

Related: How to Drink Scotch Whisky: Experts Share Their Best Tips