Back to my regular posting schedule, however we have one last unusual post to make before I get completely back to normal! A few days ago I was lucky enough to attend the Cotswolds Distillery release event for their newest limited time expression, Wychwood Harvest! It’s the fourth bottling in the Harvest series made by Cotswolds, and this particular release is the brainchild of my friend and mentor, Alice Pearson!
The event was held at The Dram Bar in London, a great spot for a drink of some of the best drams in the game, not only due to their fantastic line-up of spirits but also their incredibly knowledgeable and hospitable staff! After taking some time to wait and try a few new spirits (which I’ll come back to at the end), I was taken downstairs to where the event proper was being held.
The room was filled by friends of the Cotswolds distillery, some faces familiar to me thanks to the tour, but many more I was unfamiliar with. The event was of course dedicated to the titular spirit, however Cotswolds’ Signature Single Malt was also available. Upon entering I, of course, had to get a taste of this new dram.
The nosing was quite abrasive at first, with strong oak fuelled aromas, but it mellows out with time to reveal Manilla honey and caramelised pear. The taste was also rather intense, with spicy bark, tobacco and mild butternut squash on the palate. This was also a dram that really benefitted from water being added, as the flavour morphed into one more focused around milk chocolate, with a hint of celery! Very nice all around, though very intense!
The event had a few cocktails on offer too, with the Wychwood Harvest being used in, what else, but an Old Fashioned; I tell you what, it makes a mean cocktail!
The flavour becomes more juicy and sweet, likely thanks to the orange, and turns the vegetal notes of squash or celery into a more tomato flavour. The spice of the base whisky also helps this have a taste that, for me, shares some notes with the Bloody Mary, just with the obvious lack of viscosity and heaviness associated with the latter cocktail’s flavour profile.
After being served some scrumptious snacks, we get to hear more from Alice about what went into making this dram. The Whisky was aged for 10 years in ex-port casks, before being finished for 7 days in an ex-bourbon cask that had, up to this point, been filled three separate times. Once by the original bourbon, a second by a certain Scottish Islay distillery, and a third by Cotswolds themselves for their peated expression. This is the first whisky made by Cotswolds to utilise their casks more than once, and that history of flavour really does help to mellow out that fermented fruit from the port cask to a more vegetal palate. As Alice said: “It was used more as a seasoning, specifically to help balance the flavour” and I think it was a great call!
The odd thing about this release is that, during its creation, the design of the tube came first and the whisky followed. Alice was presented with the painting that would be used for the tube, the history of which I won’t get into here, and she designed the flavour around what she saw in the image. As a result, the bottle and tube have no flavour notes included intentionally, as the painting itself presents those notes (or at least I personally believe it does).
Finally, as I was about to leave, I was surprisingly gifted a bottle of the Wychwood Harvest! I have full intentions of making a dedicated review for it as I don’t believe the event was the best place for really taking a deep dive the way I normally do, though I do have quite a strong review for it here already! I do really recommend this dram, especially for whisky lovers. It’s a powerful flavour with some subtle brush strokes of brilliance that, like the tube itself, is a work of art!
Before I go, I do want to tag something on the end here. Whilst I was waiting for the event I met some other guests who were from a whisky bar and independent bottling company in Brighton named “Cut Your Wolf Loose“.
They offered me tasters of three bottlings they had done: Tamavulin 13 y/o (peated front, sultana, spiced grape and marshmallow), Caol Ila 17 y/o (peat and hickory smoke, chilli flakes, warm and cosy akin to a fireplace), and Miltonduff 22y/o (subtle crisp apple, gentle smoke, toffee and chilli pepper). These drams were certainly interesting to me and I’ll look into them further for a potential full review down the line!
This post’s recommended song is: “Keep ‘Em Coming” – Status Quo
