Cu Bocan 15 Year Old Oloroso Sherry Cask Matured
Cù Bòcan is the peated whisky Tomatin makes for a few weeks each year, named after a spectral black dog said to haunt the Highland village of Tomatin. For most of the year the distillery, tucked into the hills south of Inverness, produces its soft, unpeated house style. Then it switches to smoke, and Cù Bòcan is born. This 15 Year Old is the range at its most serious: fully matured in oloroso sherry casks, not merely finished in them.
Tomatin is a Highland distillery through and through, and that gives Cù Bòcan a gentler smoke than you'd find on Islay, more smouldering fireplace than coastal bonfire. This limited edition was bottled at 50%, without chill-filtration or colouring, with only 3,000 bottles made.
The nose is deep and autumnal: blackberries and raisins, marmalade and cigar boxes, dry tobacco leaf and orange peel over a smouldering hearth. The palate is dry, earthy and woody, with cedar, toasted walnut, burnt sugar and blackcurrant, a little dark-roast coffee, then candied ginger and cinnamon pastry as the sherry sweetness arrives. A gentle smoke runs underneath all of it. The finish is long and spiced, black tea and ginger root lingering.
If you like sherried whisky but want a wisp of smoke woven through it, this is a rewarding place to spend an evening.
How to Serve
Neat in a Glencairn to start. At 50% it takes water well, which softens the wood and lets the sherry fruit through.
Where to Drink It
Scarfes Bar at the Rosewood, all leather and low light for a smoky sherried dram. Dukes Bar in St James's for a quiet pour. Black Rock in Shoreditch, to sit it beside its Islay cousins.
Food Pairings
Lovely with a mature Cheddar and a spoon of quince, or a plate of barbecued meat where that smouldering smoke has something to lean on. Roast game suits the sherried depth too.
