Equipo Navazos La Bota 105 Grain Whisky Single Cask, Bota NO

Equipo Navazos La Bota 105 is a single-cask Spanish grain whisky aged in a sherry solera butt.

Grain whisky pot-distilled in Castilla la Vieja is the starting point, from the sister cask to La Bota 89, and it carries around sixteen years, twelve of them in one solera cask that had spent its previous life holding very old dry Oloroso. That is an unusually long finish in an unusually good cask, and it shows in how integrated the spirit is. Bottled in 2020 at 46 per cent. Because it comes from one butt that will not be refilled the same way, the release cannot be repeated, which is the whole premise of the series.

Tobacco leaf and roasted grain first, with a gentle peaty smoke behind them, then a honeyed sweetness that edges towards bourbon without the vanilla. The close is spicy, saline and seamless. Sip it neat, without ice, in a tulip glass.