Description
B7.3 Penne pasta arrabbiata
How about being served sitting on a polished mahogany antique table a roasted chestnut, caramelised onions and Stilton pizza garnished with fresh thyme. A lovely texture neat with a perfect balance of sweet, herbal and spicy flavours as we stayed with the Italian cuisine and had a penne pasta arrabbiata. Diluted we enjoyed an Indian summer’s day as we imagined walking through a rickhouse to end up sitting under a maple tree with its amazing array of coloured leaves to eat pastel de Nata, Portuguese custard tarts. The mash bill for this bourbon consists of 75% corn, 21% rye and 4% malted barley, matured in a #4 char new oak barrel with #2 char heads.
GN1.10 Summer in Provence
Our nasal gintelligence accounted thus – orange blossom, lemon groves, olive oil and rosemary savon de Marseille, with additional gindications of liquorice root, pine and perfumed cigarettes. The palate ginitially gave a swipe of citrus (orange peel, lemon and dark chocolate biscuits) followed by sea buckthorn, pine, rosemary and juniper; the suitably dry finish rested on sturdy pillars of peppercorn and redcurrant. The reduced nose was an Arabian prince’s tent where new carpet bags, straight from the camel, contained dried flowers sprayed with patchouli oil. The palate now ginspired us with perfumed ginsinuations of rose, vanilla, vetiver and blackcurrant – summer in Provence.
R2.20 Raw diamond with a French polish
A surprisingly herbal note greeted the panel with descriptors like feverfew tea, ginseng coffee next to mixed herb salsa verde and pink peppercorn sauce. Seamlessly followed by the palate, earthy and vegetal with hints of a gingerbread, cinnamon and clove dusted apple pie but also bramble and vanilla jam. Water added a herbal crust on a tuna steak and sweet, brown sugar barbequed meatballs, while to taste the sweetness really came to the fore with sticky toffee pudding and dark chocolate sponge cake accompanied by a glass of cherry cola. Following 12 years in an ex-bourbon barrel, we transferred this whisky into a second fill toasted French oak barrique that was previously used to mature whisky 121.98.
