Tasting Panel Notes

We found ourselves transported, on a hot sunny day, to sit in the shade by the sea sipping an ice-cold manzanilla, not a chamomile tea but the sherry from Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Then we were served a peach and rocket salad with mozzarella, strawberries and cherry tomatoes and a bushwacker cocktail of rum, coffee liqueur, crème de cacao and coconut cream. After reduction a sweet mineral note emerged, like salt-roasted candied peanuts or stewed apples with maple syrup and salted butter. On the palate, we still sat in the shade by the sea but were now eating melon wrapped in parma ham. Following 13 years in an ex-bourbon hogshead, we transferred this whisky into a first fill bourbon hogshead.