Tasting Panel Notes

Cask No. 53.531 Monster Mash:

The nose suggested beach bonfires – bacon-wrapped scallops, oatcakes and baked apples; smoke, ash and sea breezes. On the palate, definite smoke did not overshadow the fruit and nut chocolate and lemon cheesecake, while also giving us embers, more ash, smoked mackerel and salty driftwood on the finish. On the reduced nose we got more apple, pears in porridge, coffee beans, tarry ropes and sunshine on plastic beach toys. The palate’s smoke was now gentler, the grill was searing red meat and the embers included smouldering gorse sprigs, with cinnamon toast to finish. After eight years in ex-bourbon wood, we then transferred this into a first fill ex-bodega PX hogshead.

Cask No. 11.81 Home for Christmas:

An impressive and busy nose encompassed figs, dates, raisins and prunes, demerara sugar, marzipan, sticky toffee pudding, treacle, leather, black tea and tobacco. A sherry bomb exploded on the palate – giving us fruitcake, manuka honey and brown sugar sweetness to be sure, but it was also mouth-puckering and dry as ashes, with tannic oak, oatcakes, more tobacco, leather and cloves. The nose combined plum jam, damson crumble, sour cherries and candied lemon with nutty, woody evocations of bodegas and tonelerías. On the palate, some savoury notes now appeared (wild boar salami, yeast extract and gravy granules), as did medicinal impressions (ointment and bandages), Christmas spices and hot 'n' sour soup.

Cask No. 9.322 Auld Acquaintances:

Tapped from the tips of a make-up brush, pollen fell towards our noses, with a following of honeycomb, lavender blossom and strawberry incense. The palate was a big cloud of cotton candy, with a crumb of freeze-dried blueberries and cream, cortado and orange blossom honey. Water diffused orange oil around a vanilla sponge cake on the nose, followed by peaches, cranberries and perfumed candles. The finish was drier than the nose hinted, with delicate shards of burnt toffee stirred into birch sap, mingling with candied peels and more blueberries.

Cask No. 18.87 Naebdy Puts Rabbie in the Corner:

The nose was a sweet, inland Mediterranean air: full of toasted ciabatta, fresh salsa topped with pistachios, musty olive oil and thyme, and served with a glass of cloudy lemonade. The palate took a slab of focaccia to a wooden chopping board and layered it with San Daniele ham, salted almonds, marmalade and roasted peanuts, before adding some apple sauce and a cortado. Reduction gave caramel sauce to the nose, alongside whipped cream, hard cheese, blackcurrant jelly and cut grass. The palate finished lighter as hedgerow berries, white wine and lemon syrup mingled with eucalyptus and a bright lager.