Tastes

Have you ever fallen in love with a mummy? Smell it and you will. That smoky, crispy scent of dry bandage that can only be the stunning Ardbeg. A distillery that can make peat read poems.

From Nikka’s ‘peaty’ distillery – this stunningly–balanced Yoichi is like Ardbeg in reverse: with bigger emphasis on fruitiness and sweetness rather than smoke. Yes, it will make love to your tongue.

Mmm... a 'peaty' Balvenie! I like the sound of that. Well, the smell, actually. Horses, horseshoes and stables ... mixed with candy. Like a hoard of dirty unicorns stomping a pile of candies. Some hazelnut and apples. And chocolate. That sort of chocolate that makes you discover why chocolate is conaidered to be an aphrodisiac. Some leather and cigar. If Pamela Anderson of Baywatch was a hardcore biker. And the taste? Oh it's perfect. It taste like you've been given access to an ancient secret wall and fed a million years old book in a form of humanity's first ever lump of magic chocolate. And then some woodskin and dried fruit. Wow.

Flip-flops in a bottle. At first dip the nose offers pungent mango (and is quite bourbony/rumy), but then softens more towards golden raisins and reveals its pleasant oakiness (think wooden boat on a beach). The palate has that orange peel bite and overall sharpness, but a drop of water (it was begging for it) cools it down a bit and some distant chocolaty notes appear. Oaky on the mouth as well.

Barbershop perfumy at first, but give it five minutes –- a cocoa-chocolaty mist descends (think evening Venice or ... Edinburgh) with silhouettes of brown sugar, mocha, and dried maple leaves, some fruit compote. Then it builds a tent on your tongue, with lots of fudge and vanilla inside. But the palate is quite dry and zesty. Lush yet tangy. Like Catherine Zeta-Jones with a whip.

Behold a Santa popping into the chimney of your nose: Christmas wine spices and cinnamon. Chocolate dust, tiramisu, saddle leather. Been good? Here’s some tobacco and dried fruit onto your palate.

It smells like dad: his strong black tea, his cigar that he’s saving, his moustache that he wears not only in November. The taste, on the other hand, is very chocolaty; dried dark fruit and tannins.

On the nose you have a joint selfie of melon and vanilla – with bread photobombing the view. But the palate is more focused: delicious French pastries and freshly cut fruit. Quite tannic and warming.

The nose reveals ripe fruit and autumn leaves, moist pudding layered with jam, and … Leo Cohen’s voice, saying it’s Closing Time and you should have another. Mouth is tannic, blackcurrants and nutmeg.