Sherry

If spicy flavours rock your world, try this treacly, intensely luscious sweet sherry from one of the great producers in southern Spain - Lustau. This wine is made 100% from the Pedro Ximenez grape, also known as PX. It's a white grape, which is typically given long hang time on the vines followed by sun drying to create its intensely rich, sweet flavours, which come partially from the shrivelled well ripened grapes and partially from the production - this wine is fermented to a low level of alcohol and then fortified. 

Sticky date pudding or home made ginger bread, here's your perfect match.

We love sweet sherry but it's not to be confused with the great, tangy dry sherries of the world, which are an entire delicious category in their own right. 

Deliciously treacly sweet sherry from a great producer - this is the ultimate liquid match for sticky date pudding or warmed gingerbread, fresh from the oven.

Bodegas Hidalgo - a rare sherry producer, six successive generations...

Bodegas Hidalgo is one of the few independent sherry producers remaining in Andalucia in the south of Spain - the home of sherry. All of its grapes come from its own vineyards, another rarity these days and one that definitely supports the universally high quality of its wines, which are made at Sanl?car de Barrameda near the Guadalquivir River, at sea level. The continuous exposure to sea breezes bears a strong influence on the quality of the wines and their long aging process, helping to keep barrels moist in the solera system, which creates a slow and steady aging. 

Bodegas Hidalgo produces about 200,000 cases of sherry and brandy every year.

La Gitana is Spanish for the gypsy and is one of the most complex dry sherries in the world, a top notch Manzanilla best enjoyed in its youth. Which is a little bit of an oxymoron for such a complex dry wine made from aged sherry components. 

This is full bodied, fully dry and super complex with salted almond, tangy green olive and notes of cedar all vying for first place in this beautifully integrated fortified wine. 

Bodegas Hidalgo - a rare sherry producer, six successive generations...

Bodegas Hidalgo is one of the few independent sherry producers remaining in Andalucia in the south of Spain - the home of sherry. All of its grapes come from its own vineyards, another rarity these days and one that definitely supports the universally high quality of its wines, which are made at Sanl?car de Barrameda near the Guadalquivir River, at sea level. The continuous exposure to sea breezes bears a strong influence on the quality of the wines and their long aging process, helping to keep barrels moist in the solera system, which creates a slow and steady aging. 

Bodegas Hidalgo produces about 200,000 cases of sherry and brandy every year.

This is a perfect aperitif, made from the Palomino grape. Dry and complex, this sherry shows shows oxidative notes of died fruit and nuts and a fragrant nose. The Elegate Fino Sherry is a great match for cheese, fish and white meats.  

Andalucia is an autonomous region in southern Spain. Its capital is Seville but, more important than this city, is Jerez de al Frontera; the home of sherry (the word being an Anglicism of Jerez). Master Distiller Robert Fleming, carefully chose the best sherry butts from the ancient dunnage warehouses at Glencadam to create Reserva Andalucia. Once married together with bourbon casks, it was finished in Oloroso sherry butts from Andalucia. The fruitiness of the Glencadam spirit is balanced with sultana and sweet spice notes.

A classic dry fino that tastes like sherry, but is made made from the Pedro Xim?nez grape (rather than, more typically, Palomino) and is completely unfortified as well as coming from Montilla-Moriles rather than Jerez, which is the city where sherry comes from. 

This wine was made following the traditional solera ageing system in barrels and was aged under a veil of natural yeast known as the flor - exactly like sherry. This gives the wine its distinctive flavours of toasted almonds, olives and salty tang, finishing on a clean and refreshing flavour note.

It is one of the rare wines which will happily partner dishes containing vinegar. Pair it with jam?n serrano, mussels, salted Marcona almonds, marinated olives, croquettes, clams or gazpac

Leonor by Antonio Flores is described as the wild child of Jerez. Due to its mysterious ageing process it could be described as similar to an Amontillado on the nose and similar to an Oloroso on the palate. Leonor shows a light mahogany colour with golden tones and slightly orange rim. On the nose intense and complex with typical Amontillado notes such as hazelnuts perfectly balanced with other aromas such as bitter orange and mature oak. On the palate powerful and intense with toasted notes yet smooth and silky.

Sweet wine from Andalucia in the south of Spain where the grapes are late harvested and dried to concentrate flavours into sweet treats such as this lovely  fortified wine. 

Complex flavours here include caramel, walnut and hazelnut aromas.

This wine comes from Andalusia in the south of Spain, the same region that is home to sherry but this wine lies just outside of the geographic sherry triangle, so it is not, strictly speaking, sherry, although it tastes just like an outstanding amontillado style.

Introducing the Firkin 49 - The Firkin founder’s favourite selection of softly spoken relaxing
drams.

The 49 is a Highland Single-Malt Scotch Whisky - Distilled at Tullibardine Distillery 2012.

This distillery and the Firkin Founder were both founded in ’49. This is a cracker. It’s kind of long but narrow and jam-packed with creamy butterscotch toffee, crisp malt and some fruit oak. It hangs around with a tad of cinnamon and sweet biscuit.