Ashes of Midnight

A masked creature crept into the larder to forage for peppered mackerel, black forest ham and wakame-glazed brisket before adding a plate of smoked cheddar and chutney on burnt toast. They opened the window and breathed rain soaked air: water had released aromas of a wood fired sauna, carbolic soap, sizzling aromatics from herbal oils, pine smoke and damp moss. As the fire in the grate smouldered they poured a mug of steaming cocoa, snuffed out the candles and wrapped a warm lanolin blanket around their shoulders before going upstairs to bed. The creature dreamt of standing on a pebble beach on a distant shore in the Caribbean, and licking their fingers after eating jerk chicken and peppery pastrami. If you're a peat head like our masked friend, and enjoy whisky packing a sustained carbolic hit, then this is a superb dram for you. After eight years in an ex-bourbon hogshead, we transferred this whisky to a PX cask for the remainder of its maturation.