Highland Park Odin 55.8%

odinNose: Honey and butterscotch, chocolate covered cherries, slight hint of menthol. Water brings out charred cask notes and lemon curd.

Palate: Leather and burnt rubber. Dark chocolate. More oak with water, and a little honey.

Comments: Too many cask notes on the palate for me. Not undrinkable by any means, but I prefer a “younger” profile. Too bad, but that leaves all the more for the rest of you.

Mackmyra Rökig Bourbon Cask 6631 47.3%

østersund-4Nose: Cold smoke and brick, malt and barbeque. With water it turns fruitier, but there’s smoke hanging over the whole.

Palate: Smoke, barebeque and green grapes. Water emphasises the smoke.

Comments: Nice, but a little one-dimensional. Best without water.

Mackmyra Midvinter 46.1%

Mackmyra Midvinter has been finished in Bordeaux casks, glühwine casks and sherry casks. Which leads me to expect mulled wine, really. We’ll see.

Mackmyra spirit still
Mackmyra spirit still

Nose: It definitely smells of herbs, and herb schnaps. Not quite Underberg, rather a sweeter version. Sweetness and Christmas spices, and a hint of toothpaste. There’s this odd (to me) toothpaste variety with cinnamon flavour; that’s what this smells like! More of that with water. With a lot of water some fresh fruit emerges, pears, perhaps?

Palate: Toothpaste with cinnamon flavour is a pretty accurate description of the palate as well. Cloves and other Christmas spices also appear. Bitterness, oak and cloves on the finish. Water makes no noticeable difference.

Comments: This is just plain weird. It’s not unpleasant as such, but it’s not “whisky”, and not quite good enough to convince me not to care.

Mackmyra Elegant Sherry Cask 5816 43.3%

In contrast with the last couple of Mackmyras this one is not “förlagrad” (pre-matured). When the cask was filled on 28 May 2007 and the bottle filled on 15 November 2011 we’re talking about a straigh forward four year old whisky. On the other hand, it’s been matured in a 30 litre ex-sherry cask, which should give it a lot more cask influence than a four-year-old from a full size cask.

østersund-2Nose: Red berries, dried cranberries, vanilla and something port-like. With water it acquires a hint of liquorice, but also more fruit.

Palate: Sherry, and raisins with a hint of cardboard. With water the cardboard transforms into bread dough, other than that the main impression is “sherry”.

Comments: Decent, but nothing more. Better on the nose than the palate.

Mackmyra Förlagrad Svensk Ek Cask 31734 50%

So here’s another variety of the “förlagrad” (pre-matured) Mackmyra, for this one it’s three years in an ex-bourbon barrel, then three years minus one week in a 30 litre cask made from Swedish oak. The latter is presumably a new cask, and would be expected to provide a lot more to the spirit than the pre-used one.

østersund-1Nose: Vanilla and toffee. Tropical fruit in teh background, roasted nuts and garrapinyades (“brente mandler”). With water I still get the nuts, but also Four Red Fruits tea and oak.

Palate: Oak, honey, thyme and heather. More oak. Oaky bitterness. A lite liquorice and dark syrup on the finish. Water increases the bitterness, but I also get fruit tea (fruit infused black tea) with atrificial sweetener, especially on the finish.

Comments: Not my cup of tea (almost literally). Not horrible, but too… Well, too much bitterness and the sweetness that is there is not a balance, because it comes across as artificial. And I don’t like fruit infusion teas, so that’s a bit of a non-starter.

Mackmyra Förlagrad Elegant Bourbon Cask 31718 47.6%

When I set out to record the details for this cask, which Mackmyra brought a sample of to Östersund Maltfestival, I got confused. What do they actually mean by “förlagrad” (“pre-matured”)? When the label says that the cask was filled (“fatfyllning”) 30 June 2010 I’m assuming they mean filling of the 30 litre bourboncask which the whisky is then bottled from, but what, exactly, is being filled into this cask in 2010? How old is the spirit and what had it been stored in previously?

A quick search, and I found that Mackmyra provide the answer on their cask offer pages. If you buy a cask from them, one of the spirit varieties you can choose is “förlagrad elegant”, which means that the spirit will first have been matured in a 200 litre ex-bourbon cask (i.e. a bourbon barrel) for three years before it is filled into your 30 litre cask of choice. In other words, it is already whisky by the time it’s filled into the tiny cask, and you would be justified in calling the extra maturation a sort of “finishing”.

In any case, here are my notes for this specimen of Macmyra’s “elegant” (that is: not peated) spirit, matured for three years in a bourbon barrel and then for almost three years more in a 30 litre ex-bourbon cask.

østersund-3Nose: Vanilla, fresh herbs, gooseberries and tropical fruit. More oaky with water, and some sweetish spices; cinnamon?

Palate: Vanilla, wood and oaky bitterness. Tropical fruit and a hint of coconut (pina colada!). Water tempers the bitterness somewhat and I’m left with vanilla, fruit and coconut.

Comments: A very pleasant dram. A little too bitter on the palate, but nice even so.