Cask No. 30.97   

Dancing on a volcano

Speyside, Spey

Please limit one bottle per member

The big sherry-influenced nose carries boozy trifle, rum and raisin, Christmas cake, Hoisin sauce, dark chocolate and hints of cigars. On the palate we got spotted dick*, over-done Christmas cake, very dark chocolate, intense mocha, treacle toffee, and bicycle handlebar grips; one panellist was ‘dancing on the edge of a volcano’. The reduced nose gave us coffee and walnut cake, bread and butter pudding and ‘plastic raincoats walking away from a firework display’. The reduced palate had loads of toffee, raisiny fudge, dried fruits and char-grilled Chinese ribs with a dry oloroso finish – probably challenging for some but unanimously approved by us. (*British pudding made with suet and dried fruit)

Cask: First-fill Spanish oak Sherry butt
Age: 9 years
Date distilled: June 2007
Alcohol: 64.7%
USA allocation: 54 bottles