Tasting Notes
A deep, emphatic, bass-level smokiness at first nosing. Then we found the expected avalanche of cured game meats, scorched earth, BBQ embers, menthol tobaccos, hot sauce, charred rosemary wood and spicy smoked almonds. Like swimming in peated draff! With water we noted smoked mutton, graphite oils, pure natural tar, roof pitch and smoked mead. Hints of beeswax, peppered biltong and silage too. The neat palate detonated with malt vinegar, pickled tarragon, beef-flavour baked corn snacks, camphor and industrially heavy peat oils – something akin to pickled black garlic and paprika. With water it became more complex, with notes of star anise, pumpernickel bread, brown sauce with liquid smoke, charred artichoke and singed hessian. Loads of wee flavours popping out everywhere.