Why would you buy a Swiss watch? I don’t mean the Gold, Diamond encrusted ones that Del Boy aspires too, I mean the ones certified by the “Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres” who oversee the precision and accuracy of the watches. These days any mobile phone can connect to the Internet and has precision to a 100 Billionth of a second. To quantify just how short a period of time 100 Billionth of a second is, it is about half the time it takes for our local politicians start an argument. Well the reason we pay large sums for the watch is because we want that attention to detail. The COSC test to certain criteria and is typically accurate to 99.9999% which is pretty much neigh on perfection.

So, we love attention to detail and are prepared to pay for it, so when I first saw the offerings from Dunvilles Whiskey I couldn’t help but adore the packaging, utterly stunning. The labels on the stuff are out of this world: Embossed, gold highlights, clean lines, lovely fonts… Now imagine what the guys from Echlinville were going to do with their showpiece offering. This Whiskey was 18 years in the barrel, first in bourbon and then finished in 8 specially selected Rum casks from the old Port Mourant estate in Guyana. The bottle comes with a mirror, a booklet, a personally written label and a miniature of the 41yo Rum that was aged in the cask. The care and craft in this box are like nothing else I have seen and a hearty congratulations to all involved.

The liquid itself? It is deep rich and hearty. Full of fruits, demerara sugar and bananas. It needs to be worked with and its cask strength (57% abv) so needs water to open it up and bring it to prominence. This offering is going to be collected more than drank and I genuinely believe that Dunvilles will be the most collectable Irish Whiskey. 4 casks worth are for the British Isles and the other 4 for the US, thus the brand is going global and about time.

Nose – Bananas, prunes, treacle, lots and lots there. 2.5/3

Palate- Banoffee, Rum babas, vanilla ice cream 2/3

Finish – Long long, treacle, chocolate, clove, to sweet cream.  3/3

Value for money 1/1

Total 8.5/10