Ardbeg Wee Beastie 5 YO

Nose: Crunchy barley sugar, sharp apples, cracked stones and lashings of smoke. Damp seaweed, rock pools and mossy stones stick out from behind the smoke, followed by tarry ropes, burning pine needles, singed lemon peel and barbecued apples.

Palate: Crisp apples, ash and a big hit of damp peat smoke to start. Gravel and burnt logs develop along with sea-spray brininess. The dryness disappears under a wave of lemon and apples, before reasserting itself with a shovel of driveway gravel and ash.

Finish: Fresh leather, creosoted fences and piles of lemon peel.