Bovril Beef Stock Cubes 12 x 10 g

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It can happen that I get the same kinds of aromas when I let some fruits ferment before distilling them, but with fruits, that’s not always good news. Becomes unusually more brutal and rough, with touches of balsamico (naturalmente) and puréed chestnuts over some kind of coffee cream. Mouth (neat): the sherry remains relatively discreet, we’re rather finding huge spices, caraway, cinnamon, juniper, cinchona, white pepper… That’s all the oak talking to us. It’s true that the whisky’s sometimes pretty singular, that the shape of the official bottles can be seen as a little weird, and that there’s been some, say, marketing and communications errancies in the recent past.

There’s also something slightly medicinal, iodine, aspirin tablets, bandages… With water: tarmac, whelks and clams, really! I wonder if anyone has ever discovered an alternative, or is it another closely guarded British secret. Bovril continued to function as a "war food" in World War I and was frequently mentioned in the 1930 account Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War by Helen Zenna Smith.

The colonne créole is the traditional still that they use for rhum agricole in Martinique and Guadeloupe. Nose: a bit of sweet mustard and leather blended with some dry white wine, with a few metallic touches, that’s very Jura in my book.

Nose: it’s not unusual that casks that have naturally dropped under 50% when still very young would be very good. Yes, despite the almost complete lack of food-value, Bovril’s advertising was clever enough to make the product synonymous with the soldier, the adventurer, and with the British Empire in general. There’s a more layered, honeyed sweetness and the medicine, peat and herbal notes have pretty much merged. So, grey cane, blue cane , red cane, black cane… I just couldn’t tell you about the differences I’m afraid. With water: indeed it got a little easier, with oranges, but the pepper remains huge and bites your tongue.

Mouth (neat): very good, big, rather sharp, and rather on marmalade and marzipan, plus touches of paraffin and tonic wine. Comments: all is well and very good, and some would even argue that this is ‘a proper, legitimate style’. There’s some pretty strong and earthy black tea in there too along with a slightly modern oak shaving note.