The nose had reasonable sweetness (toffee, golden syrup, marzipan, sugared almonds) some savoury suggestions (cooked crab, roast duck with plum sauce) and ‘an engineer’s workbench in a boatyard’. The palate, at natural strength, conveyed burnt sticks and over-done fruit cake, sticky gingerbread, teasing smoke and hints of soot and ash. The reduced nose leaped about from crushed shells and coal sacks to spiced stewed plums, figs and orange fruit cake, with a slight suggestion of rubber (those old tires that dangle from harbour walls). Water improved the taste, in our opinion – Terry’s chocolate orange, sticky toffee pudding, butterscotch, Demerara and clove.