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Billy Abbott, The Whisky Exchange

• Nose

  Intensely fruity: dried pineapple and mango with sultanas and a touch of stewed green apple. Fruit cake richness (proper fruit cake, all dried fruit and dark sugars held together with the minimum of butter and flour) provides a backbone, sticky and dark with molasses and spice. Lighter wine gum notes develop along with a touch of furniture polish and old wood. After a few minutes in the glass, toffee and vanilla notes build and complement the fruit.

• Palate

  All the fruit from the nose hits at once along with a punch of old-school lardy-cake rich, dark sweetness. Brown sugar, nutmeg and spiced sponge cake batter are pushed aside by stewed apples and oranges. The spice builds again, gently prickly, backed up by gentle barrel-char and bittersweet liquorice pastilles. The fruit jellies from the nose make a brief appearance before disappearing again under a wave of dark, sticky and intense fruit.

• Finish

  Charred oak and sweet buttery spice fade slowly. Baked apples and raisins linger.

• Comment

  A bit of a beast that shows its alcoholic strength through its intensity rather than overt booziness. Packed with flavour and ready to be slowly contemplated – it rewards those who give it time to breathe in the glass with layers of complexity.