This was almost sensory overkill, but we managed! Overripe pears and plums, musky and woody, tobacco, floral and nutty – we imagined being in a perfume laboratory in Grasse. The taste neat was silky and rich, gentle and refined as well as oaky and creamy, like a chilled glass of white Bordeaux wine, lemon, peach, apricot and herbaceous notes of bergamot. Diluted we found manuka honey, orange blossom, figs and dates next to marzipan.

On the palate, we detected that sweet rancio flavour found in sweet wine with the delicate earthiness of mushrooms and truffles. After 13 years in an ex-bourbon barrel, we transferred this whisky into a 1st fill barrique from a privately owned small bodega, now in its 9th generation, that focuses exclusively on the Pedro Ximenez grape.