Wire Works Calvados Arrivee

From the White Peak Distillery – built inside a former wire-making factory in Derbyshire’s Derwent Valley – Wire Works Calvados Arrivée gives the distillery’s lightly peated spirit, initially matured in bourbon barrels, a three-year finish in first-fill ex-Calvados casks. These particular casks held Calvados, an apple cider brandy produced in Normandy, for a full decade. The results are sweet, fruity and elegant, teeming with fresh apple notes, the distillery’s distinctly rich mouthfeel, and a lingering wisp of soft smoke. A perfect sipper for the melancholy, fading days of late summer. One of a small batch of just 987 bottles, presented at 49.2% abv without artificial colour or chill filtration.

Both sweet and vibrant on the nose, with green apples, rhubarb and custard, fresh-cut grass and raspberries giving way to a rich palate of white chocolate, baked apples, cinder toffee and biscuity malt. Delicate smoke weaves its way through cinnamon-spiced apple crumble on the finish.