Here's where I would start - from Woodforde's own description of the beer...
"Solid and generous sweet fruit flavour create a complex and satisfying dark chestnut-coloured beer. Wonderfully, and dangerously, drinkable"
http://www.woodfordes.co.uk/html/admiral.html
Colour: Tawny / Copper
Smell: Almond / Sultana / Sherry
Taste: Nutty / Almond
Hoppiness: 3/5
Maltiness: 4/5
Start with the taste - Nutty / Almond.
This type of flavour profile comes from kiln-roasted malts which have been partially caramelised in the kilning - basically, crystal malts. The darker the crystal (say 60L), the more nuttiness you will impart into the flavour for the same weight. This malt also adds a reddish tinge to your beer, so we are satisfying the 'colour' aspect of the description. I reckon this would form your 'speciality' malt. You will probably want this to be around 5-10% of the total grainbill. Let's say around 8%.
The style of beer is a 'special bitter', so for your base malt you will want good old Maris Otter. Cheap, cheerful and does the job.
Hops give you three components in your beer: bittering, flavour and aroma. The bittering ought to balance the flavour from your malts - in other words, if you are doing a brew that is going to contain quite a bit of fruitiness, then you will want a hop that will shine through this. A good basis for this bittering is something like Northern Brewer. To add a bit of subtlety to this (and remember what you are brewing here is a quintessential English 'Special Bitter'), then use the old standard (and equally English) combination of Fuggles for flavour and Goldings for aroma.
Your choice of yeast is as important, if not more so, than your malt. Again, we are emphasising the sweetness and maltiness of the beer, so we want to choose a yeast that will leave some of that behind and not just nosh it all up and turn it to alcohol. Windsor yeast does precisely that.
If it sounds as though I have already gone through this thought process before, you're dead right. My last AG from two days ago was intended to produce just such a beer, and this is what I came up with....
Maris Otter 4.4 kg
Crystal Malt 60L 0.4 kg
66 degree mash for 90 minutes.
Northern Brewer 30 grams FWH (first wort hopping, i.e. in the bottom of the boiler as the hot wort was being run in before the boil)
Fuggles 30 grams @ 30 mins
East Kent Goldings 30 grams @ 15 mins
Protafloc tablet @ 10 minutes
20 litres post-boil
Yeasties one pkt Windsor yeast, rehydrated and pitched at 19C
