Color: Bright yellow gold, oaked white wine color with a ring of small teardrops keeping their shapes for quite a while before morphing into thin but slow moving and oily legs.
Nose: A little hot on the nose at this abv in the beginning. but allowing it air helps a lot. Apple butter, unsweetened apple juice and ground cloves. Sawdust, and rotting fruits. A couple drops of water amplifies the wood even more: Wood shavings, dry hardwood sheets and cut wood. Heavy wool sweaters, old rugs and pyrazines: a.k.a cat's pee and yellow bell peppers...
Palate: Surprisingly drinkable without adding water: Warming, dry and actually very pleasing. Dusty and chalky... Spiced pear and apple compote, softened butter and pastry cream. Lightly toasted wood and apple skin. Plum paste, ground ginger and ground white pepper. After adding water: Lemon shortbread cookies, lemon powder and ground coriander.
Finish: Long with white pepper, ground coriander and dried apple rings. More lemon powder...
Overall: This is such a laser focused, delicate and beautifully spiced spirit. Distillate focused, not overpowered by the cask and quite complex. Dusty, citrusy and dry. When I commented in the end of my Juranรงon Cask Finish post the other day: "I couldn't help myself thinking all the time: What if they left this in its original cask longer instead of racking it..?" this was exactly what I had in my mind. Great cask management... Thanks to PM Spirits for all the samples to make this three Calvados reviews in a row happen.
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