Using a mix of new toasted oak casks, heavily toasted casks with a medium char, and casks that have a heavy char but extra toasting on the cask heads. Bottled at 46%, unchill filtered and with no added colour,
Appearance: Darker honey/Bulmers cider. Nice and crisp in appearance and decent oily film on glass when swirled.
Nose: Not a particularly powerful nose, quite light and delicate in fact. As the name suggests, sugary sweetness, some tropical fruit, digestive biscuits, cornflakes and milk and some red apple in custard show first and foremost.
There are some of the more common sweetshop aromas too: Foam sweets generally and icing sugar.
There’s a spiciness in the background too. Baking spices such as cinnamon, allspice and ginger.
A faint ABV hum gently wafts about in the background. It doesn’t really add anything to the experience though.
Palate: Some oiliness greets the tongue, which is a nice surprise given the delicate nature of the nose. A pleasant buttery flavour and texture.
Slightly more spicy on the palate than the nose, quite a nice warmth on the chest in fact.
The sweetness is still very much present but more in balance with the spice now. Some orange peel, clove, strawberry cheesecake and, when held in the mouth, some chilli heat and tingling too.
For me, it’s unusual that the palate surpasses the nose, but that’s the case (for me) here.
Finish: Chilli dark chocolate, bitter orange, white pepper. Slight numbing on the sides of the tongue.
Overall: An odd one for me. It noses like a 40%, drinks like a 50% and goes from sweet to chilli heat and spice in the process.
That said, there’s absolutely nothing unpleasant about it at all. It’s pretty good as it goes.
