Side by side : Single Casks from Benrinnes

I'm really really really trying to reduce my sample boxes, some of the samples, including these two have been in there for a while.

So, not a distillery I've reviewed before but, these are two independent bottlings of Benrinnes, let's see how they compare side by side!

Dram	Benrinnes 2000 (16yo) SMWS 36.132 'A Warm Treat'	Benrinnes 1984 (30yo) Douglas Laing XOP
Characteristics	58% ABV, Natural colour, NCF 275 bottles from Virgin Heavy Toast Medium Char Oak Hogshead	57% ABV, Natural-colour, NCF 186 bottles from a Refill Sherry Butt
Bottler info	A whiff of winter spice scented candles and beeswax furniture polish were soon followed by golden syrup sponge cake, treacle tart and plum squares with marzipan crumble. On the taste the plums were sautéed in maple syrup next to toffee apples and poached pears in spiced red wine. Water released the aromas of fresh balsa wood, vanilla custard and spicy rum-nut brittle whilst on the palate very moreish - honey and ginger bread cake with a brown sugar sauce.	The nose opens with a delicate, fragrant quality and develops to a crushed sugar character. The palate is typical old style Speyside - still fresh, softly spiced - attractively sweet and fruity. The finish is long and creamy, still fruity and now carrying a sweetly gristed style and late camphor.
My thoughts:
Appearance	A lovely dark gold in the glass, swirls fall as slow thin legs.	A very pale gold in the glass, thin gravity defying swirls eventually fall as slow thin legs.
Nose	Orchard fruit and golden syrup mingle with icing sugar and strawberry jam.	Lots of oak to start with, with almost a meaty note. Hints of musty bookshops and a little citrus. Maybe some smoke notes?
Palate	Thick syrupy arrival, very sweet, fruity but with a spicy edge. Loads of plums, strawberries, cherries covered in golden syrup. The orchard fruit from the nose are back with a hint of smoke and a drying effect as the liquid disappears. YUMMY !	Smooth spicy/sweet arrival and the ABV makes itself known. Dried pineapple and mango vie with ginger and chilli to assault your tongue. Some toffee notes and again a little smoke note as the liquid disappears.
Finish	Long and very warming, as the name suggests,  sweet golden syrup and again that hint of smoke.	Very drying, full of lingering oak spices.
Overall	I honestly wasn't expecting much from the SMWS, it's been in the sample box for ages but wow what a wonderful dram. It's probably long gone but if not get a bottle! The DL was a lovely dram but not quite up to the standard of the SMWS bottling, maybe too long in the cask, 30 years intensifying the oak spice and dulling the Benrinnes fruit notes?

As a side note you can see all three version of the Benrinnes name spelt here....

Of course there is only one Benrinnes spelling. Thanks to @Whisk_Whisk for the SMWS, I incorrectly added the distillery name to decode the 36 reference number. Thanks to @steveprentice for the DL, he spelt that one wrong!