Made to the original Barbadillo vermouth recipe using absinthe, quassia tree bark, rosemary, Seville orange and elderberry on a base of manzanilla sherry with a small amount of the original, oak-aged, 50-year-old vermut stock blended in. Medium roasted-walnut brown with a tinge of green. Smells like pecan pie and marmalade. Camphor cream and sticky toffee pudding. Raw leather and a powerfully bitter spine. Almost hoppy bitter, in a triple IPA style. Has something wild, funky and earthy, like rustic saucisson. Roasted maltiness layers over melting prunes layers over endive-leaf-spine over cloves and then that leather. It very much reminds me of oloroso. A vermouth for the inner circle. Not for novices.

Tamlyn Currin - jancisrobinson.com - ()