Time for a Ben Nevis session, beginning with the recent 2010 single cask bottled by Whiskybase to mark the 270,000th bottle recorded in its database. It is a 15-year-old release bottled at 54.2% ABV. It will be joined by a small selection of other Ben Nevis bottlings: an official 10-year-old from 2000; two further official 10-year-olds bottled in 2018, including the cask-strength Batch 1; and a 27-year-old release from Le Gus’t, also bottled in 2018.
Ben Nevis 2010 Whiskybase (2025) Review
We start with a special commemorative single-cask bottling produced by Whiskybase to mark the 270,000th bottle logged in the Whiskybase database, distilled at Ben Nevis in January 2010 and bottled 15 years later in January 2025. Bottled at natural cask strength of 54.2% ABV from a single refill barrel, only 272 bottles of 700ml were filled, without chill filtration nor added colour. Each bottle carries the Whiskybase community’s signature branding, with a nice refresh coming, by the way, as you’ll discover at Whisky Live Paris. Like with all of their commemorative bottlings, Whiskybase catalogs this exact release under ID WB270000. Its initial price was €89.50 but it quickly sold out, and secondary-market pricing runs around €156–190 per bottle.
Colour:
Pale straw.
Nose:
Neat: The nose starts on creamy vanilla and candle wax, with a nice fruitiness and spicyness. There is a lovely citrusy freshness, joined by a subtle floral note that intensifies over time in the glass, alongside white pepper, cloves, hay and tree bark mingling with pineapple, pear, and apricot; in the background, notes of fresh yeast dough, a touch of milk chocolate, and green herbs also emerge.
With water: Reduction brings even more wax, joined by light herbal tea notes, lime, with a lovely light lemongrass note appearing.
Palate:
Neat: The palate is immediately waxy and citrusy. A lovely olive oil intertwine with tropical fruits (pineapple and a little maracuja), some well balanced spiciness (pepper, ginger, clove), and herbal notes. Soft oak notes bring light tannins and bitterness, leafy flavours (basil, laurel) .
With water: Reduction brings out grapefruit and a little bit more wood, more spices and herbal tea.
Finish:
Honey and tropical fruit aromas linger for a long time, accompanied by a very subtle barrel spice at first, but which grows and grows as time goes by, getting also more and more bitter.
Comments:
A very satisfying Ben Nevis, combining waxy and tropical notes with a well-balanced mix of fruit, oak, spice and restrained bitterness. The palate and finish continue to develop over time, with the finish in particular seeming to build before gradually fading after a good while. There is also something in its profile that recalls Irish single pot still whiskey. Given its modest original retail price, I am especially pleased to have bought a bottle, along with a few extras for friends.
Rating: 7.5/10
Ben Nevis 10-Year-Old Grand Gold Medal 1999/2000 Bruxelles (2000) Review
This Ben Nevis 10 year old single malt was introduced to the world back in 1996 and since starting out slow at first, has taken the world by storm. The 10 year old Highland single malt whisky we’re trying today was bottled in 2000 and won the Grand Gold Medal at the 1999/2000 Bruxelles Whisky Festival, which was shown by a sticker on the tube, but not on the bottle’s label. Thus, we can guess the liquid itself was the standard Ben Nevis 10-year-old from that era, bottled at 46%, with no indication regarding chill filtration nor colouring.
Colour:
Burnished.
Nose:
Neat: Initial struck-match sulphur, paraffin wax, iron pipes and an mineral note; then fruits with apples, yellow kiwi, unripe mango, melon, lemon and banana. Honey; something a bit pungent, leather, damp earth, petrichor, tobacco and a trace of peat smoke.
Palate:
Neat: The palate is oily and slightly chewy but also slightly thin at the same time. Stewed apples, oranges and lemon meet barley malt, fudge, icing sugar, oak, leather and dark chocolate. The more rugged side brings hay, farmyard mud, grilled aubergines (or eggplant for our US friends), meat stock, quite some sea salt, liquorice roots and peat smoke.
Finish:
Medium-long to long, drying and mineral: oak spice, dark chocolate, caramel, tobacco, iron, a pinch of pepper, smoke and lingering waxy citrus, with an appealingly dirty earthiness and a very slight hint of sulfur.
Comments:
This is a good, slightly dirty Ben Nevis 10-year-old, with a rugged and rather uncompromising profile that suits the distillery well. It is not a flawless example, and it does not reach the level of the often excellent 1996 vintages, but it has real character and an appealing old-school feel.
Rating: 7/10
Ben Nevis 10-Year-Old (2018) Review
We continue with a more recent official Ben Nevis 10-year-old, bottled in 2018 at 46% ABV. This is the standard expression rather than the separate 62.4% Cask Strength Batch 1 released that same year, which will follow immediately afterwards. The 46% version is bottled without chill filtration and with natural colour, and is intended as the distillery’s more regular 10-year-old release. This particular edition has now sold out, so anyone seeking this exact bottling will need to look to the secondary market.
Colour:
Burnished.
Nose:
Neat: The nose opens dry, spicy and herbal. The clearest recurring notes are lemon and orange, particularly bitter orange peel, alongside a leafy green quality and some sharpness. A faintly musty note appears as well, with wax, metal, eucalyptus and a small amount of earthy and mineral funk. The fruit is not overtly sweet; it feels more like citrus peel, green fruit and restrained orchard fruit than syrupy tropical fruit or dense dried fruit like its older sibling.
Palate:
Neat: The arrival is full and relatively firm for 46% ABV. Orange returns first, together with warm spices and an oily, waxy mouthfeel. The core palate moves through yeast, roasted malt, coffee, vanilla and dried herbs. On successive sips, it becomes softer and fruitier, with lychee, citrus, wax and a fleeting pepper note. The texture remains one of its strengths: substantial rather than delicate, with a dry, savoury side, earthy, faintly metallic or maybe even umami-like.
Finish:
The finish is relatively long, dry and increasingly tannic. Citrus, coffee and salt form the backbone, joined by herbs, oak spice and a lingering waxy bitterness.
Comments:
This Ben Nevis has a lot in common with the 2000 bottling reviewed above, with a broadly similar overall profile, but there are a few clear differences. The fruit character leans more towards citrus than tropical notes, while the whisky also feels a little funkier and more earthy. It is still very good, though perhaps not quite at the level of the 2000 release.
Rating: 6.5/10
Ben Nevis 10-Year-Old Cask Strength Batch 1 (2018) Review
This limited-edition official Ben Nevis was distilled on 21 April 2008 and bottled in September 2018, following 10 years of maturation in a combination of first-fill bourbon, sherry and wine casks. Bottled at its natural cask strength of 62.4% ABV, it was released as Batch 1 and each bottle was individually numbered, with a global outturn of 9,000 bottles. You’ll have to take your chance at auctions to find a bottle, expect to pay around €200 for one. I don’t think this was ever followed by a batch 2, by the way.
Colour:
Cider.
Nose:
Neat: The opening is dense and cask-driven, with a first a strong winey sulfur, then after a lot of aeration, other aromas brought by the casks: raisins, prunes, dates, figs, berry jam, redcurrants, cherries, dark honey, caramel, coconut fudge, buttercream, chocolate, and dried fruit. The Ben Nevis character remains underneath, showing as linseed oil, yeast, damp earth, leather, tobacco, copper, gunpowder, engine oil, and a faintly meaty or savoury edge.
With water: The nose becomes sharper and the alcohol less integrated, but the nose also loses some of its sulfur.
Palate:
Neat: The palate is powerful, oily, rich, and sweet-savoury. Salted caramel, treacle, honey, vanilla, dark chocolate, coffee, espresso, walnuts appear at first, then the wine casks become particularly apparent in the middle: blackberry, redcurrant jam, stewed berries, sour red fruit, red wine tannins, and a dry red-wine-like bitterness. This is joined by ginger, pepper, liquorice, charred oak, eucalyptus, moss, dried herbs, and a restrained smoke.
With water: The palate does not change much, and even gets slightly more peppery.
Finish:
The finish is drier, more tannic and oak-led. Walnut shells, cocoa powder, espresso, leather, plum, raisins, pepper, nutmeg, ginger, winey berries and oak spice.
Comments:
This Ben Nevis is difficult to score because it will divide opinion. If you enjoy sulphury notes and the influence of red-wine casks, there is a good chance you will like it, as you will find plenty to like here. If those characteristics are not to your taste, it may be a much harder whisky to enjoy.
I am generally not keen on either red-wine maturation or sulphur, and I find this Ben Nevis is unconventional, uneven and intensely dirty in a distinctly Ben Nevis way. A 4 feels fair for me because of its faults, but it is really a whisky that could land anywhere between 3 and 7 out of 10 depending on your preferences.
Rating: 4/10
Ben Nevis 1990 Le Gus’t (2018) Review
We end today’s review with a 27-year-old single-cask Ben Nevis independently bottled by the French specialist retailer and bottler Le Gus’t as Selection XV. It was distilled on 9 November 1990 and bottled on 10 June 2018, at natural cask strength of 58.9% ABV. The release came from cask no. 5, with an outturn of 736 bottles, filled without chill filtration nor added colour. Its maturation is unusually significant to its final character. The whisky spent its first 12 years in sherry cask(s), then a further 15 years in a Port pipe. That is not a short finishing period: more than half of its total maturation occurred in Port wood.
Colour:
Rust with a red amber hue.
Nose:
Neat: The nose is wine-led, with baked apples, sour red berries, cherries, dates, and red berry jam. It also shows a darker, more mature register: walnut cake, rancio, caramel, coffee, dark chocolate, leather-bound books, tobacco and musty old oak. Under the Port pipe’s fruit and sweetness, there is still recognisable old Ben Nevis: flint, mineral dust, a musty/funky warehouse note, and a slightly industrial and smoky edge.
With water: the nose shifted toward berries and red wine, with fruity cinnamon, grape bubblegum and Pedro Ximénez-like sweetness, while slight peat smoke remained in the background.
Palate:
Neat: The palate is full-bodied, rich, thick and oily. It starts with a high concentration of Port-derived flavours: cherries, pomegranate syrup, jammy berries, Christmas pudding, fruitcake and sweet wine dominate the fruit component. The whisky’s sweetness is reinforced by caramel, fudge, Demerara sugar, dark chocolate, coffee and sweet tobacco. The more individual Ben Nevis side arrives as flint, industrial smoke, pickle brine, hoppy IPA, a light phenolic note, leather and earthy savouriness. Spice is there but on the back feet: black pepper, cloves, mint and oak-driven dryness build through the middle and later palate.
With water: On the palate, water made the whisky noticeably sweeter and more berry-led, while keeping the tannins in check. The unusual hoppy, phenolic character remained, but brine receded relative to the Port-derived fruit. The finish became sweet, peppery, hoppy and lightly metallic.
Finish:
The finish is long, and carries dark cherries, black pepper, chocolate, coffee, almonds, leather, raspberry jam, old oak and a distinctive Port-cask dryness, with some metallic notes and a dunnage warehouse mustiness.
Comments:
The Port influence from the second maturation is quite pronounced on this Ben Nevis, but the distillate remains recognisable throughout and the wood never fully takes over. There are, unsurprisingly, plenty of wine-led notes, given the combination of sherry and Port casks, but the balance still works. Le Gus’t has a strong record for selecting successful casks, and this Ben Nevis is another good example of that.