Expert Review

Nose: Confident, complex and strong, with an instant full bodied aroma that somehow successfully mixes sweet, ripe red apples and moist fruit cake or plum pudding with a savoury aroma like that of roasting meat. As the nose opens further there’s more sweetness, as if rich vanilla cream was being poured over a trio of ice creams: rich rum-and-raisin (plenty of alcohol), chocolate and vanilla. In time there are more drying scents, now of roasting coffee beans, christmas pudding mix, dried raspberry, allspice and dry-roasted coriander seed. Palate: Full blooded with great impact, beginning with bitter chocolate and black cherry fruit then sweet, honeyed and smooth; rounded and cooling, with light eucalyptus. After this more assertive and warming, growing earthier and drying to reveal a fine savoury bite reminiscent of charred pepper steak, as the distillery character rises to the challenge of the strength. Late notes suggest oak shavings in a furniture restorer’s workroom. Finish: Long, highly pervasive and surprisingly sweet with smooth, violet-edged dark-chocolate-laced tannins to the fore, and behind this a dry char that leaves the palate sweet and just faintly smoky, as with a treacle tart. Splendidly warming and comforting, with late orange zest.