Savanna L’Absolu 2023
N: I haven’t checked information about what’s in any of these blends, if it’s even public, but at a sniff this seems like moderately aged juice with a bit of estery distillate included, but not dominant. Bourbony wood, somewhat grapey fruit, black licorice candy
P: pretty syrupy in feel and fairly sweet, grape flavored medicine, licorice candies, some faint acorn/pecans and dried winter spice. Tarry, medicinal finish, with some tire tread
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Savanna L’Absolu 2024
N: this one has that fruity lactic thing that’s so distinctive in some Savanna marques, zero sugar strawberry yogurt and maybe a bit of apricot, orange cough syrup. Fruit forward, but in an idiosyncratic way. Medium wood presence again
P: somehow both lighter in profile but also more tannic and generally weirder than the ‘23. So much medicinal fruit additive, all the varieties of fruit yogurt, strawberries and berries and orange marmalade. There’s old wood here too and while there’s a transitory fruit flower honey note in the palate, it finishes dry, like an unsweetened fruit tea blend, or even an amaro where the bitterness successfully hides all the sugar
82

Savanna L’Absolu 2025
N: more wood here than either of the others, by contrast, and just more dark molasses depth; I imagine all of these are tropically aged but this one announces it more clearly. Toasted, even burned pine nuts and hazelnuts, faint coffee grounds or cocoa powder, and a pruney fruit density
P: again this is less distillate forward and more of a classic tropically aged wood profile. It does, again, have a medicinal side and some tar, but the dark nuts and pruney fruit and burned spices are at the steering wheel
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