Tasting notes

nose

Liquorice and burnt honeycomb over toffee, balanced between bitter and sweet

palate

Rich and glossy; big malted barley and oak sweetness, molasses and more liquorice, with the barley adding depth underneath

finish

Long; cream toffee and layered oak that swing between sweet and dry, turning silky at the close

Mash bill

100% malted six-row barley. Amrut buys Indian six-row barley grown in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan in northern India, the barley strain the distillery believes brings more flavor to its spirit. This bottle holds no peated malt, so the Indian barley and the oak carry the whisky on their own.

Awards

• Silver — IWSC 2016
• Gold — Silk Route Conference & Competition 2016

Why it's craft

This is the bottle that introduced Indian single malt to the world: Amrut launched it at a tasting in Glasgow in August 2004, India's first single malt to be bottled, and only began selling it at home in Bangalore in 2010. The company was founded in 1948 and is still run by the Jagdale family, and it mashes, ferments, distills and ages this whisky at its own distillery outside Bengaluru. The heat there speeds maturation so much that Amrut's master blender reckons one year in India does the work of about three in Scotland.