We sat feeding a dense, festive fruit cake with sweet amber ale, before a bowl of warm custard entered the room, topped with a crumb of sticky demerara sugar. The palate was as full as the nose promised: creamy and sweet, with notes of cherry pie, white rum, mango and nutmeg. Water added a fine perfume to the nose, promoted raisins, and added burnt honeycomb. The palate finished as an echo of the nose, with added winter spice and chunks of nougat. After 12 years in an ex-bourbon hogshead, we transferred this to a first-fill American oak oloroso hogshead for the remainder of its maturation.