This week: Some things can't be rushed. A whisky needs its years in wood. A watch collection needs decades before it stops being a product line and becomes a lineage. A car nameplate needs a generation of owners before it earns an anniversary badge.

This issue is about exactly that. Benromach finally has a 12-year-old in its core range, and Knob Creek let twelve Kentucky summers do the talking at full proof. Vacheron Constantin marks thirty years of the Overseas, Formex takes its field watch into the air, and H. Moser builds a digital watch for people who don't want a smartwatch. And on the road, Subaru celebrates 25 years of the WRX and 15 of the BRZ with two manual-only specials, while McLaren brings back the clutch pedal for the first time since 1992. Lots of fun things!

Pour something good. Let's get into it.

On September 3, Benromach introduced a 12-year-old single malt to its permanent flagship range, joining the 10, 15 and 21, aged exclusively in ex-sherry casks and bottled non-chill-filtered at 46% ABV [1]. Finally. And I knew this was coming, after talking to the Master Distiller at Benromach last year. I was stoked for it then, and stoked for it now.

Benromach's 10, 15 and 21 each marry first-fill sherry casks with first-fill bourbon casks, so the 12 is the first permanent release matured exclusively in first-fill sherry [2], specifically first-fill ex-Oloroso casks [5]. It also answers the one complaint Benromach fans have had for years. The persistent critique of the core range was bottling strength, with the 10, 15 and 21 all reduced to 43% [3]. This doesn’t bother me as much as others, as I think Benromach is still great, in its ownright. But for all the people complaining for 46, it is here. 

Why does 46% matter so much to whisky nerds? Chemistry. Whisky carries long-chain fatty acid esters and other oily congeners that stay dissolved at high strength but start to precipitate as the spirit is diluted or chilled, producing a harmless but unsightly haze. Chill filtration removes them by cooling the whisky and passing it through a filter, and with them goes some of the texture and weight on the palate. Around 46% ABV, those compounds stay in solution well enough that a distillery can skip the filter and keep the mouthfeel. 

And no, the 10 isn't going anywhere. It continues in the range unchanged at 43% [2]. Distillery manager Murdo Mackenzie framed the 12 as a function of patience, saying that as stocks continued to mature, a 12-year-old had always been part of their long-term vision [1].

A little context for newer readers: Benromach was founded in Forres in 1898, acquired by the family-owned Gordon & MacPhail in 1993, and restored and reopened in 1998 with the goal of reviving a lost Speyside style carrying a delicate hint of smoke [4]. It remains one of the smallest working distilleries in Speyside and was among the last designed by the famed Victorian distillery architect Charles Doig [5]. It has earned such a following that whisky geeks have taken to calling it the Springbank of Speyside [3]. As someone who loves both, I can’t disagree. I’ve been loving Benromach since 2019, and it’s only gotten better.

Official notes: spiced cinnamon buns and stewed raisins on the nose, with fruitcake, raspberry, orange, cracked pepper and gentle smoke on the palate [1]. Early reviewers are finding more going on: Words of Whisky picked up coal dust, cocoa, cinnamon-dusted apples and bonfire smoke on the nose, and described the palate as thick, oily and syrupy [3], which is exactly what you'd hope for from a non-chill-filtered bottling.

Price and availability: RRP is £45 (about US$61) for a 700ml bottle, sold through Benromach's website, specialist retailers, the distillery visitor centre, and selected international markets [1]. Let the hunt begin!

Knob Creek 12 is one of the best values on the bourbon shelf at 100 proof. Take away the water and you get something very different. Announced September 16, the new limited-edition release is bottled at 121.2 proof (60.6% ABV) and batched from just 10 lots hand-selected from Knob Creek's Clermont, Kentucky rickhouses [6]. Master distiller Freddie Noe put it simply: "Cask strength means the barrel gets the final say" [6].

This is a rare one. It's only the second cask strength release of the 12 ever, and the first since 2020, and it carries the same $90 MSRP as its predecessor from six years ago [7]. In a market where prices only seem to go one way, that's a genuine inflation beater. For background, Knob Creek first released the 12 year as a limited selection in 2019, then made it a permanent staple after it proved popular [8]. The mashbill is 77% corn, 13% rye and 10% malted barley [9].

A quick bit of science on why Kentucky cask strength whiskey tends to land north of 120 proof. In the hot, dry upper floors of a Kentucky rickhouse, water escapes through the barrel staves faster than ethanol does, so the proof actually climbs as the whiskey ages. In a cool, damp Scottish warehouse, the opposite happens and strength drifts down. Twelve summers in Kentucky concentrates everything.

That also sets up the classic debate: neat or with water? There's real chemistry here. A 2017 molecular dynamics study found that guaiacol, one of the compounds responsible for smoky, spicy aromas, tends to gather at the liquid's surface at lower ethanol concentrations but disperses into the bulk liquid above roughly 59% ABV [10]. At 60.6%, this bourbon sits just above that line, so a few drops of water should push more of those aromatics up to where your nose can find them.

What others are tasting: Knob Creek's official notes list caramel, char and dried apple on the nose, butterscotch, dried apple and seasoned oak on the palate, and a warm finish with caramel and subtle cinnamon [6]. Forbes found spiced apple butter, mesquite barbecue sauce, heavy toasted oak and pralines on the nose, likening it to Knob Creek crossed with a good batch of Booker's, with baked caramel apples, dark cooked raisins and moderately astringent oak tannins on a palate that isn't overly hot [7]. Reviewers of the previous batch described it as a rich pecan pie in a bottle, with hints of pipe tobacco and leather [9].

Here is my take:

I will say, when I first popped this, it was a bit hot. But since it’s calmed quite down. Compared to the regular 12, this takes it to a new level. This is surprisingly a lot more oaky. It kind of shocked me, to be honest. It was as oaky as my Knob Creek 18. This is not a bad thing for me. I’d chew on wood, if I could.

Price: $89.99 SRP for 750mL, available nationwide for a limited time [6]. Get it if you can.

Anniversaries are a theme this issue, and Vacheron is marking one with real restraint. The Overseas story starts in 1977 with the integrated 222, Vacheron's answer to a new generation of luxury sports watches led by the Royal Oak and the Nautilus, and the first-generation Overseas arrived in 1996 carrying some of the 222's traits in a bigger, bolder form [11]. For a long stretch, it was treated as the forgotten third member of the integrated sports watch club before collectors finally came around [12].

To celebrate thirty years, Vacheron didn't revive an archive reference or stamp a number on a dial. It fitted the 41.5mm 18K white gold case of the Overseas Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin with a new azure dial, a combination the brand had never offered before, limited to 200 pieces [13].

The part that gets me is the thickness. The whole watch measures just 8.1mm, remarkably slim for a perpetual calendar, and the movement is the reason [14]. A perpetual calendar is essentially a mechanical program: a stack of wheels and cams that encodes the lengths of all twelve months across a four-year leap cycle, so the date never needs manual correction (well, until 2100, which skips its leap day under Gregorian rules and trips up nearly every perpetual ever made). Fitting that program into the calibre 1120 QP/1, which measures 29.6mm by 4.05mm and contains 276 components, runs at 2.75Hz (19,800vph), and carries a 40-hour power reserve and the Hallmark of Geneva [11], is a feat of compression.

One more detail for the science crowd: the case includes soft-iron casing for anti-magnetic protection [11]. Soft iron has high magnetic permeability, so field lines preferentially travel through the shield rather than the hairspring inside it. Think of it as a detour sign for magnetism.

At press time, the brand declined to release pricing ahead of the official announcement. I’d wager it’ll be $125,000-140,000 though. The Overseas as a whole though, is one of my favorite watches. I’d do anything to pick up a regular Overseas.

From thirty years of haute horlogerie to one of the most engineering-minded brands at the accessible end. Formex's AirField expands the Field collection with an aviation-inspired watch that keeps the 40mm titanium case while introducing a new dial, hands, and more [15].

Titanium is the headline material, but Grade 2 has a well-known weakness: it's soft and scratches easily. Formex's fix is surface hardening. The Grade 2 titanium case is hardened to roughly 900 Vickers, giving it more scratch resistance than conventional stainless steel [15]. Vickers hardness is measured by pressing a diamond pyramid into a material under a known load and measuring the dent; the smaller the dent, the higher the number. Untreated Grade 2 titanium sits at a fraction of that 900 figure, which is why this matters for a watch meant to be worn hard.

The movement upgrade is the other story. The new Sellita SW200-2 Power+ runs at 4Hz with 26 jewels and now delivers a 65-hour power reserve, up from 41 hours for the standard SW200-2 [15]. Practically, that's the difference between a watch that stops over the weekend and one you can take off Friday evening and find still running Monday morning.

Specs round out nicely: 10.5mm thick, 48mm lug-to-lug, screw-down crown, 150 meters of water resistance, and a titanium caseback featuring a radial aircraft engine and propeller [15]. Dials come in Desert Sand, Horizon Blue, Jet Black, and Tarmac Grey [17]. Pricing is $1,060 on a Velcro strap or $1,200 on leather, and as always, Formex's sticker price includes tariffs, duties, and shipping [16]. Pre-orders opened September 24, 2026, with deliveries beginning at the end of October [17].

Formex’s field watch has always been one of the best bangs in the Swiss watch market. This new release adds the new movement, which makes it even better. If you’re looking for a more fun dial confireration compared to the field, this is what you’re looking for. You cannot go wrong. The new dial colors, and strap colors, are great. I might need some of the new straps for my Field, actually.

And now for something completely different. H. Moser has unveiled the Off-Grid, a hybrid analog-digital watch pairing a skeletonized dial with a digital screen at 6 o'clock, in a 42.6mm by 14.4mm case borrowed directly from the Streamliner collection [18].

What makes it interesting is what it leaves out. Moser calls it a third way between mechanical watches and connected devices, a digital watch for people who already love watches [19]. There are no fitness metrics and no notification feed. Instead, the functions read like a complications wish list: GMT, a 1/100-second split-seconds chronograph, perpetual calendar, perpetual moon phase, sunrise and sunset times, alarm, timer, and a small multilingual dictionary [21].

Here's the energy-budget angle. The D10 caliber, developed with Sequent, is accurate to ±0.3 seconds per day and offers up to 12 months of power reserve in time-only mode [19], dropping to roughly six months when the analog and digital functions are both in regular use [18]. That halving tells you where the power goes: a quartz-regulated timekeeping circuit sips energy, while lighting a display and running a chronograph gulps it. For context, a COSC-certified mechanical movement is allowed to drift between -4 and +6 seconds per day, so the Off-Grid is more than an order of magnitude tighter.

There are two versions, blue PVD steel with a Blackor fumé dial and white rubber strap, or black PVD steel with a red fumé dial and black strap, each limited to 1,000 pieces [20]. The price is the real surprise: at CHF 3,900, the Off-Grid is Moser's most accessible entry point by a wide margin [20], and it's being sold through Moser boutiques and the brand's website for $4,900 through October 5 [21].

Final Thoughts:

Subaru's anniversary season just got real. At Boxerfest 2026 in York, Pennsylvania, Subaru of America unveiled the 2027 WRX GD25 and BRZ ZC15, limited-production editions whose names honor the chassis codes of each model when it arrived in the U.S. 25 and 15 years ago [22]. Fittingly for a rally brand, the cars were revealed under persistent rain from a nor'easter hitting the East Coast [25].

The names are pure nerd bait, so let's decode them. GD was the chassis code in the VINs of the first U.S. WRX sedans, with G identifying the Impreza line and D the second-generation sedan. ZC works the same way: Z for the BRZ line, C for the first generation [24]. Both cars are built on their respective tS trims [25], and both come exclusively with a six-speed manual [23].

WRX GD25.

It comes only in World Rally Blue with gold 19-inch wheels on Bridgestone Potenza S007 tires, upgraded gold-caliper Brembos, and an STI carbon-fiber swan-neck rear wing, the same design fitted to Travis Pastrana's WRX ARA25L rally car [23]. It also gets stiffer springs, revised damping, a flexible strut tower bar, and Recaro seats [24].

That swan-neck wing is worth a sentence of aero science. A wing makes most of its downforce from the low-pressure airflow along its underside. Conventional wings are mounted from below, putting struts right in that airflow. A swan-neck hangs the wing from its top surface, keeping the underside clean. It's a race-car solution on a road car. One small irony: the S007 is a high-performance tire better suited to autocross and track days than loose gravel stages [25], so this is a tarmac rally car in spirit.

BRZ ZC15.

It's finished exclusively in Ceramic White, a color offered only on this edition, with matte bronze wheels, red-painted Brembo calipers, unique side decals, a black decklid spoiler and a flexible V-bar under the hood [25]. The white-and-bronze combination is a nod to the 2020 BRZ tS, and power comes from the familiar 2.4-liter four making 228 hp and 184 lb-ft, sent to the rear wheels through the six-speed manual [26]. Inside, black leather-appointed seats with Bordeaux red inserts are exclusive to the ZC15, along with an anniversary plaque near the STI aluminum and leather short shifter [22].

The catch. Production is capped at 350 WRX GD25s and 300 BRZ ZC15s, with reservations opening in 2026 and deliveries in winter and summer 2027 [22]. The ZC15 lands in early 2027, and the GD25 follows later next summer [27]. Specs and pricing will be announced closer to launch [22]. For the whole U.S. market, 350 WRXs is almost nothing. Worth noting too: Gear Patrol called out that these aren't the RA-type revival some enthusiasts were hoping for [27]. I also am super underwhelmed by this release… It’s basically just a new bodykit. They still have one more release up their sleeve, so lets see if Subaru can save us!

If the Subaru anniversary cars are the working-class case for the manual, McLaren just made the million-dollar one. At Monterey Car Week in August, McLaren revealed the McL 6GT, its first car with a manual gearbox since the F1 debuted in 1992. It's technically a concept, but a production version is scheduled for 2028 [28].

The name is a history lesson. The McL 6GT is built to honor Bruce McLaren's 1969 M6GT, a road car prototype that never reached production [29]. Bruce wanted to turn his Can-Am racer into a car for the street, and the project died with him when he was killed testing at Goodwood in 1970. Fifty-seven years later, the company that carries his name is finishing the thought.

Mechanically, the recipe is refreshingly simple: a combustion V8 matched to an old-school H-pattern manual with a clutch pedal instead of a modern dual-clutch, in a car whose predecessors since the MP4-12C have all used dual-clutch transmissions [30]. There's no hybrid assistance, and both the monocoque and body are carbon fiber [31]. Interior photos suggest six forward gears, and the clutch pedal is finished in Papaya Orange [32]. McLaren also swapped in electrohydraulic power steering, aiming for better feel than a purely electric system [30].

Here's the engineering question worth asking: why did manuals vanish from supercars in the first place? Part of it is speed, since a dual-clutch can preselect the next gear and swap in milliseconds. The bigger problem is torque. A clutch transmits torque through friction, and its capacity depends on how hard the springs clamp the friction plates together. More torque demands more clamping force, which means a heavier pedal, bigger plates, or multiple plates. At 700-plus horsepower, you start running into the limits of what a human left leg and a road-car clutch can reasonably manage. Building a manual into a modern McLaren isn't nostalgia; it's a genuine engineering problem to solve.

Don't expect this to change the rest of the lineup. McLaren describes the McL 6GT as a "new type" of supercar sitting outside its core portfolio, suggesting the manual is a special-occasion feature rather than a brand-wide return [31]. Pricing hasn't been announced, though Motor1 expects it to land north of a million dollars [28].

Outro: Twelve years in a barrel. Thirty years of a watch family. Twenty-five years of a rally car that taught a generation of us how to heel-toe. None of it happened fast, and none of it would mean as much if it had.

Until next time!