A Smoking Bishop In The Kitchen

SPIRIT NOTES

We found ourselves in a farmhouse kitchen making strawberry jam in a copper saucepan while preparing the dough for a rustic soda bread. There was plenty of spicy heat on the palate neat, coming from fiery cinnamon candy balls or traditional British aniseed-flavour gobstoppers. With the addition of water we cooked haggis and served it in a whisky peppercorn sauce. To taste, Christmas pudding came accompanied by a smoking bishop: a type of mulled wine popular in Victorian times, made using port, red wine, Seville oranges, sugar and cloves. Following eight years in an ex-bourbon hogshead, we transferred this whisky into a first fill Spanish oak Oloroso hogshead.