Plum After Hours

Plum in Cognac is utterly sumptuous. It's deep, dark and sexy, exuding a luscious, crowd-pleasing decadence that stays true to its name. I get a rich, velvety plum, bobbing up and down in cognac barrels filled with aged liquor. The booze is a little sharp to begin with, but quickly smooths, imparting flavours of vanilla, spice and dried fruits from the cask.

I sense a lot of maturity here - this is not a cute and playful plum, but a dark and brooding fruit that stopped eating candy long ago and has since turned to the bottle. As it dries down, a smoky balsamic richness rises, bringing to mind a speakeasy of sorts - the air thick with a deep purple fruitiness, timeworn wooden furniture and an atmosphere of lavish indulgence.

Eventually, the plums become ghostly and the booze evaporates, leaving a dusting of cinnamon and a pasting of viscous, vanillic resins at the bottom of a mahogany-coloured barrel. The fading of the opening's gorgeous, plummy magic keeps it fractionally shy of a total love, though it is still beautifully done