Longrow Cage Bottle 8yo Fresh Sherry

THE WHISKY: DUTY PAID SAMPLE, LONGROW 8 YEAR OLDDistilled 23 January 2015, bottled 8 February 2023 — a single fresh (first-fill) sherry cask, cask strength, 58.2% ABV. Fresh sherry wood at this age gives real colour and depth fast, layered straight on top of Longrow's already assertive peat. TASTING NOTESBonfire smoke first, dark and resinous, sherry sweetness pushing straight through it — raisin, black cherry, a lick of tar. Damp earth, iodine, brooding dried fig underneath. Palate arrives thick, oily, smoked bacon fat, treacle toffee, sherry sweetness wrestling the smoke for dominance and mostly winning early, peat creeping back in through the middle. Clove, dark chocolate, burnt orange peel with air. Finish long, smouldering, sherry and smoke fading together, slow. Proper young Longrow — fresh sherry hasn't tamed it one bit, if anything sharpened the contrast. Gorgeous, brooding dram. Serve: Neat, in a Glencairn glass — cask strength gives room for a drop of water if the smoke needs taming, but this earns drinking neat first.