Tag: Swedish

Spirit of Hven Organic Oak Matured Aqua Vitae 40%

Batch Bav 2, bottle number 840. This aquavite has been cask matured both before and after distillation in Spirit of Hven’s potstills, which, according to them, gives it more depth.

hven_akevitt

Nose: Smells more like Underberg than aquavite. Very herby and a lot of sweet herbs, too. Rosemary, basil and cumin. Hints of toffee and coffee sweets. The oak is also quite evident.

Palate: Cumin and lemon, but also sweetness. Dry hay. Salt on the finish.

Comments: Quite original, and quite nice, but lacks a little balance. It’s a bit all over the place, especially on the nose. Still, not a bad dram.

Box The Pioneer 48.1%

box_pioneerNose: A bit rough, you can smell its age. Pear lollies and spruce. Water adds bay leaf and lemon, rosemary and some congeners. More water tames the congeners and brings out the malt.

Palate: There’s something undefinably young on the palate as well, but it’s a well-balanced dram, with black pepper and wood, a hint of acetone and something fruity. Plums, perhaps? Water emphasises the acetone, but also provides peach jelly and more wood. With quite a lot of water it blossoms. The pepper is still there, but otherwise I get vanilla ice cream with lemon balm.

Comments: It presents as somewhat too young, but with enough water it’s quite nice. I remeber the Försmak edition I tasted at TWF as less congener-affected, but then that was a peated version and peat does conceal rather a lot. I’ve poured another and let it stand for half an hour or so to breathe, and that has helped a lot. I doubt I’ll add water now, it’s nice as is. The overall judgement is promising rather than perfect, but then I guess the destillery would agree, they have, after all, released it as an early days edition.

Dalarado The Year One

In Dalarna, Sweden, a microbrewery was started a little over a year ago, Dalarado. The man behind it, Chris Slawson, a native of Colorado, USA, had started homebrewing with his best mate there. But his heart lead him to the Swedish countryside and the little town of Malung (pop. 5126). After brewing at home for some time with ever increasing quality the dream of a proper brewery started to grow. During the winter of 2012 things were set in motion and a 200 litre brewery was installed.

Today 800 bottles are produced each week, mainly of the tre standard brews: an American IPA, a Rye Pale and a Coffee Stout. To celebrate their one year anniversary they produced a limited edition beer – Dalarado The Year One, a belgish triple with chanterelle mushrooms!

Dalarado The Year OneColour: Clear amber-yellow.

Nose: Smells like a low tone triple with a earthy tone in the background.

Taste: Ooh, this was strange. Sweet vanilla, mushrooms, strawberries, earthy/musty tones and a hint of yeast.

In summary: Not all there, but a fun experiment. The mushrooms gave the brew too much strangeness for my palate. Don’t see mushroom beers taking over the world anytime soon.

Mackmyra Vit hund Newmake 46.1%

The newmake bottled as Vit hund is of the variety Mackmyra calls “Elegant”, distilled from unpeated malt.

mackmyra_vithund

Nose: Sulfur, a touch of apricots, clear malt notes, like a grain store. Almonds and a little fennel. With water I get lemon and a bit of acetone, then honeydew melon and almond essence. Sulfur and congeners throughout.

Palate: Spice, peaches, hint of pineapple. Grainstore as well. A sharp note on the finish. With water there are more spices; cardamum and coriander, as well as baked, mealy apples.

Comments: This is nice enough to beg the question of whether maturing it is really neccessary. On the other hand it’s nice in a very different way than whisky, so perhaps, “Both, please” is the correct response. There is a lot both on the nose and the palate, and it opens beautifully with water. There is newmake roughness, of course, but that is to be expected and personally I rather like it (if you like your whisky smelling of tar I guess you may like sulfur as well, though there will probably be a lot of people who like one or the other and some will like none). Clear malty and grainy notes leave you in no doubt what sort of spirit this is, also a good thing.

 

Box Försmak bourbon cask smoky newmake 20 months 57%

TWF14-14Nose: Strong similarities to the Kilkerran WIP batch 1; more like aquae vitae than whisky, but very, very nice.

Palate: Malt with an aquae vitae and spruce profile.

Comments: Very promising, but also quite drinkable as is.

(Tasted at Trondheim Whiskyfestival 2014.)

Mackmyra Special:09 – Vildhallon 46.1%

Finished in ex-raspberry wine casks (“Vilkdhallon” means “wild raspberries”).

Nose: Alcohol. After a while peach and lemon, and quite a bit of vanilla.

Palate: The cask is present, even if I doubt “raspberry” would have been my first thought had I had this blind. I get more of a rhubarb, actually. And citrus. A lot of vannilin, so one suspects relatively new oak. In the background I find raspberry jam.

Comments: This stretches the concept of whisky, really, something it shares with a few other “finishes”. This does not make it a bad product, in fact it is rather nice, but it raises issues with branding.

Arve says it was much more raspberry-like from a newly opened bottle, my sample has had some air.

Mackmyra 5 years from a private cask

This is a note for a Mackmyra private cask. Friends of ours had a share in a cask, and had just received some bottles when we visited them.

Mackmyra has offered private casks since day one. Several Scottish distilleries have been doing the same thing for years, but as far as I know Mackmyra were the first to offer small casks, of around 30 litres. This means the maturation period is much shorter. A private cask, at Mackmyra anyway, does not come cheap, but then part of the point is to help fund the running of the distillery in the period where they are spending rather than earning money. You are also buying not just the spirit, but a whole package: You can be present when your cask is filled, you get yearly samples – and you can visit the cask to receive them if you like – and when the spirit is ready to be bottled you can pay for a package of hotel, whisky dinner and tasting. All in all it is possible to spend quite a lot of money this way, but you’re bound to have fun doing it.

The whisky our frinds had was of the smoky variety, and had been matured in a 30 litre ex-sherry cask for five years.

Nose: Clear smoke, some sherry notes, spices – coriander seeds and cardamum – dark chocolate and a sweet tarry note.

Palate: Nice smokiness, some driend fruits. A rather sharp side-note.

Comments: A lovely nose, and a nice enough palate. No reason to be disappointed in this. Worth the money? Well, perhaps not. But subtrackt the expenses for the experience in itself and you’re left with a decent whisky and a good story to serve alongside.

If you’re tempted to spend some of your hard-earned cash in this way, visit mackmyrareserv.de and play around with spirit and cask types