2020 Scratch, 1st Edition, French Oak, First Fill Ex-Muscat Cask, Winter 2023 Release, Rum, England (47.2%)

It takes a particularly obsessive sort of tinkerer to spend half a decade sitting in a ramshackle ex-stable block in rural Hertfordshire, fine-tuning his distillation apparatus and endlessly prodding and poking various yeasts into fermenting treacly, gooey molasses. Doug Miller, the iconoclast behind Scratch Distillery, is, thankfully, just that sort of obsessive tinkerer. 

This rum was initially fermented using three diverse yeast strains. Then, crucially, Doug added his in-house Dunder (a filthy, bacterially rampant concoction of spent yeasts and distillation effluent) begetting incredibly complex biochemistry and, eventually, flavour. 

It is a pleasure to work with Doug to help select casks that will nurture his exquisite spirit: some over a few years; others destined, we hope, for the very long haul. This ex-Muscat cask smelled wonderful before filling. It then gave us a nervous year-or-so of seeming shyness, only offering muted, dampened notes as flavours and aromas struggled to find a path through – adolescent awkwardness, perhaps. Joyously, as a new year dawned, everything started to integrate into a coherent whole that Doug felt was at apogee in early autumn 2023. 

I find oily pecans, sticky prunes and bitter orange peel on the nose. With time on the palate, those pecans are toasted and studded into unctuous treacle with its classic confluence of bitter and sweet. Dark, heady pipe tobacco can be sensed with time, along with marzipan-stuffed dates and cinnamon bark. 

Rob Whitehead, Spirits Buyer, Berry Bros. & Rudd