If Amrut is the voice of inland Bangalore, Paul John is the voice of the Indian coast. Distilled by John Distilleries at their Goa facility, just inland from the Arabian Sea, these single malts mature in underground warehouses where the salt air and tropical humidity work on the cask in concert. The angel's share is still hefty — around eight percent a year — but a little gentler than Bangalore's, and the resulting spirit carries a distinct coastal signature.
The Oloroso Single Cask is the distillery at its most opulent. Drawn from individual ex-Oloroso sherry butts shipped from Jerez, these releases are bottled at full cask strength without chill-filtration or colouring. Indian six-row barley, malted and distilled in Goa, is the raw material; the Oloroso cask is the frame.
Under the Goan sun, sherry maturation behaves differently from how it behaves in Scotland. The fruit darkens faster, the spice pushes further forward, and the tannins integrate more completely with the spirit. The finished whisky is rich without being syrupy, sweet without being cloying, and layered with the kind of savoury, nutty depth that only an active Oloroso cask can supply.
Paul John's Oloroso single casks have been consistent gold-medal winners at international spirits competitions, and with good reason. They sit comfortably alongside the finest sherried single malts from Speyside and the Highlands, with an Indian accent all their own. If you've never tasted sherried whisky from the tropics, begin here. A genuinely essential bottle.
