Paul John Peated Select Cask

About the Paul John Peated Select Cask

Paul John Peated Select Cask is a peated single malt whisky from Goa, in western India. The distillery stands at Cuncolim, a town near the coast. This bottling arrives at cask strength, 55.5% ABV. Nothing is added for colour and there is no chill filtration. Bourbon casks handle the maturing. Smoke sits alongside sweet malt here rather than shouting over it. The result is a peated whisky with a tropical accent. The malt starts with Indian six-row barley, grown on the subcontinent. Most single malt distilleries work with two-row. Peat comes in from Islay and Aberdeen, because India has none of its own. Goa's heat then does the rest. Casks give up eight to ten percent a year to the angels' share. In Scotland that figure is around two percent. A barrel that fills 350 bottles there yields roughly 150 in Goa after three years. Sweetness arrives first, barley sugar with a curl of earthy smoke behind it. Dried fruit sits underneath, dried apricot most of all. The sugars darken on the tongue, closer to muscovado and demerara. Smoke builds slowly and never takes over. A fruity thread runs through the middle, carrying cocoa and a little spice. Bitter orange peel and ash close it out. Salt lingers at the edges. The Select Cask line sits apart from the core Brilliance and Edited bottlings. Each release comes from casks picked for one clear character. Here that character is peat, kept at full cask strength. Paul John Peated Select Cask therefore tastes bigger and warmer than the standard range. Tropical maturation packs a lot into a young whisky. Anyone curious about what peat does outside Scotland has a straightforward place to start.