Summer sipper

The Panel were on a strawberry-picking outing, collecting them in a leather pouch while nibbling on a peach and parma ham bruschetta and drinking pine needle tea out of a flask. On the palate we got candied pineapple in honey, autumnal berries and sautéed porcini with garlic, parsley and hot pepper. Water added hedgerows of ripe blackberries and gorse bushes in full bloom as well as banana plants and palm trees. The taste was a mixture of warm marzipan croissants, almond and coconut cupcakes and soft morning rolls on one hand, and a plethora of sweet Indian spices found in garam masala on the other. Following nine years in an ex-bourbon barrel, we transferred this whisky into a first fill heavy toast, medium char barrel.