Price: $215 AUD
Purchased From: SMWS Australia
ABV: 61.4%
‘Dark Chocolate Crémeux’ is a 7-year-old from distillery 128. Full maturation in a 2nd-fill ex-Oloroso butt with a total of 612 bottles. I’m a big fan of this Welsh distillery and the colour on this release was amazing, a deep reddish brown. Being ex-Oloroso I did expect some colour, but not this amount for such a young age.
Nose
Rich, buttery and sweet! Strawberries… all types of berries really. Brandy butter, sticky toffee pudding, slight hint of leather.
Taste
Dark chocolate, fruit cake, jam-filled donuts, hazelnut praline and a gentle coffee note. The finish was warming and slightly spicy.
Conclusion
A big, bold and rich dram. You can see why they bottled this at 7 years old; any longer in the cask and it would likely be overdone. This did take a good amount of water though, which is no surprise, given the ABV.