Britain’s oldest wine and spirit merchant, Berry Bros & Rudd, has dropped an absolute doozy with the launch of The Collective, a new annual series of spirit releases which focus on distilleries who think alike. Its first iteration, Pioneers, was curated alongside the king of cocktails, Mr Lyan, and is all about championing spirits makers who are at the forefront of sustainability — and the one Cognac in the collection is an absolute winner. Made out of vattings from the organic Cognac house’s 2016 and 2017 vintages, it elicits my favourite tasting note, fruit salad sweets, as well as peach melba and sweet sake. Only 421 bottles exist to nab. Well, 420. One of them has my name on it.
