The state of whisky made in Denmark - part 1

I have a page (see link to the right) where I very short list the state of the danish distilleries

This is the start of a series of at least 9 reviews of whisky made in Denmark

At the recent danish fair, I had an hour to visit the various stands of the danish distilleries that has actually made whisky that's older than 3 years old. I am going to review a big range of whiskys. Not really a big fan of these very young whisky's that the craft distilleries release all over the world, but sometimes they hit gold. I don't expect it to be as good as the 12yo's you can get from the big guys, who have thousands of casks to play with. I do expect them to be a little bit selective to what they bottle, especially concerning the higher prices these small distilleries have to charge as it isn't mass production factories. I do expect a standard single malt 12yo from Scotland to reach around 80 on my rating scale. I don't expect these new distilleries to be able to do that yet, but anything lower than 75 I tghink really shouldn't have been bottled. 

First stand I visited was Stauning, a distillery from the west coast of Denmark. 

Mini version of the Stauning stills

I had a chat with master distiller Mogens Vesterby. A fun guy to chat with, he can't really wait for his whisky to get to 10 years. He explained a bit about the production. It's very local barley and rye they use and they malt it themselves. They also use local danish peat for the peated version. So far they have bottled a range of very young, about 1yo ryes. Later in this series I will get around their 3yo malt whisky releases

1. Stauning Young Rye 49.3%

Distilled 2010/2011, bottled October 2012. 

Nose : Young and new-makey. This isn't unpleasant and the nose is very clean without offnotes. The rye is kind of laidback behind the youthness

Palate: A very nice fresh young spirit. This is more balanced and smoother than the prior versions of young ryes I have tasted from Stauning. The rye flavour itself is a lot less subtle and laid back, when I compare to other high-rye ryes I have tasted from the other side of the atlantic. This whisky is a lot more cereal than you would normally expect from a rye whisky

Finish : Medium and cereal and in the end you sit back with the rye flavour

Comment: I think it's great that the spirit of the distillery hasn't been disguised behind a lot of wood managent as often seen from other distilleries releasing ultra young stuff. The whisky is well matured for the short period it has been on cask, and it's nice you taste the actual quality of the spirit itself

Rating 83/100

Next episode  ->  Stauning 3yo traditional 2nd edition