35.388 Snug and toasty (Creators Collection)

Description

From the team

With the Members’ Room picking up, we head to the snug, a new space created in the refurbishment. With two booths, it is cosy but inviting, the perfect place for enjoying a quiet dram while tucked away from the busy hubbub of the main bar. Cask 35.388 Snug and toasty is about creating feelings of nostalgia. There’s familiarity and comfort from the Spicy & Sweet flavour profile, and from the distillery, which is a member favourite.

“It comes back to fire and homecoming and being snug and toasty,” says Shona.

“It’s got a couple of bottles, a couple of glasses that looks as though they’ve been half drunk after a party. You’ve just missed the party. You know that people have had a good time in here. So that was kind of the vibe we were going for – nightcap vibes.”

As we chat through the whiskies, the labels feel more and more sequential. They’re snapshots from the stories of great evenings, followed by the tales that are told the day after and the embellished versions that are spun over the years to come. In the background of the label for Cask No. 35.388: Snug and toasty there’s a barrel, a reminder of the casks that bring everyone to the Members’ Room in the first place.

Tasting Panel notes

The bountiful nose brimmed with sticky toffee pudding, forest fruits, red berries sautéed in old armagnac, black pepper and playful things including jammy dodgers, polished oak, vanilla shortbread and cassis. Water invited in aromas of apple blossom, fig rolls, golden raisins, granola and bitter cocoa, with some firmer hints of allspice and chai tea. The palate was initially dominated by resinous exotic hardwoods, sticky dark treacle, pears baked in hoisin sauce and fig chutney. This was proving decadent and outrageously quaffable, we agreed. Reduction brought lighter notes of elderflower wine, strawberry jam on brown toast and battenberg cake, plus raspberry ripple ice cream studded with dried banana chips. This whisky was matured for 27 years in a bourbon hogshead before being transferred to a second fill PX sherry hogshead.