The state of whisky made in Denmark - part 8

Braunstein e:2
62.3%

First peated whisky bottled by Braunstein. This was sold as an empty bottle and a wooden box around the time the cask was filled and a certificate with the privilege of waiting 3 years for your whisky. The price was 2000 Dkr which is around 230£. You can still buy it for 5000 Dkr today!

Nose : Not much, faint sourness and a little peat. Cabbage - The more I dvelve into the nose the worse it gets

Palate: A little nuttyness. Not much peat. A light spirit, reminds me more of a solvent than whisky

Finish : a burn and more nuts

Well, the whisky is not as bad as the review reads

Rating 59/100

Comment : I don't think it's a good idea to predecide a cask to be bottled at a certain date when filled. Here is my suggestion on how to do things:

1. Fill cask

2. Monitor cask

3. Bottle when ready

But what do I know, I don't have a distillery

The state of whisky made in Denmark - part 7

Braunstein 13:1
46%, ex-oloroso matured 5yo

Nose : Plesant fruity. A mix of dried fruits and fresh berries

Palate: Very nice, not the most robust or fullbodied sherry whisky, it's a light style. A lot of fresh red berries. It's very fruity. Cinnamons, licorice

Finish : Fades away fast

Rating 83/100

The best Braunstein I have tasted. A very light spirit with a fragile body which is very well integrated into the Oloroso

The state of whisky made in Denmark - part 3

Stauning Peated 3yo 2nd Edition 55%
Distilled 2009, bottled 2013

Stauning says they bottles this in a dark bottle to protect the phenols from disintegrate from light. LIght and whisky for sure doesnt work together very well

Young nose, a bit of peat and vanilla. There is a little bit of youthfull sourness in the nose I don't really like

Not expecting much the palate is surprisingly good. The wood has spiced up this whisky very well with some prickly vanilla notes embedding the peat

The finish is long and in the end I pick up some more sour youthness

Again a young dram, but thats what they got. In my opinion on level with the young stuff bottled by Kilchoman

Rating 80/100

Comment a funny mix of very pleasing and somewhat displeasing

This concludes the Staunings. The rye ended up as my favourite, but the vanilla part of this peated dram is really delicious and when fullly matured this will be a top class whisky

Next up is three cask samples from Ørbæk (or Nyborg distillery as the also call themselves)

The state of whisky made in Denmark - part 2

Stauning Traditional 3yo Edition 2 55%
Distilled 2009, bottled 2013

This reminds me a lot of the rye. It's quite unusual that a distillery produced a similar rye and malt whisky. Or maybe it's unusual I find it so. 

Being a few years older than the ryes, this whisky still seems a lot more untamed. It is simoultanously both a bit rough and delicate malty spirit, with a very cereal note. Again I like I get a chance to taste the spirit and not something masked in some wood experiement. Both creamy and cereal and very oily. I would say this could be a very good whisky but it needs more years in a cask. 

Finish : nice creamy finish with a little vanilaed touch

Rating 77/100

Comment : Too young but still quite delicious. Very promising whisky

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

Jørn's Springbank

It's great to have friends... it's great to drink whisky. Whisky have brought me a lot of friends, and there's nothing like dramming with a group of friends or exchanging samples with friends. One of my friends is a bit different from the others..instead of bottles of whiskies, he is into purchasing casks..well maybe not instead of bottles, but "as well" as bottles :-)

Jørn G Pedersen is a great guy, that apart from swapping samples with me enjoys golf and whisky, which is a great combination when holidaying in Scotland. Not being a golfer myself I have to let do with whisky only.
Some of the drams I'll be writing about in the future will be things I got from him and that I really look forward to taste.

Jørn was one of the few guys out there who was smart and lucky enough to get hold of a casks of Springbank when they had a window open in the cask selling house. It's not really an option anymore. This cask was shared purchase of his Golf Club, and I think it's under Jørn's influence it was bottled at cask strength and thanks for that. After purchasing a bottle, he said that if shared that at Limburg he would give me another one. I remember leaving the dreg with Teun (of http://www.maltstock.com/) to share around Netherlands.. I hope it was received well.

1. Springbank OB Private Bottling Fresh Bourbon Barrel #261 10yo 59.9%

Distilled 01.10.1999, Bottled November 2009

The nose is sweet, créme brûlée, slightly peaty

palate : remarkable peaty, woody, full bodied, creamy and oily. Whiskyjuice. It's "darker", heavier than what you would expect from a fresh bourbon barrel Springbank if you expects anything like the 100 proof (EU-version) or the Bourbon Wood expression. 

The peatyness surprises me a lot. It makes me think Longrow influence. I know that Springbank is made lightly peated, but this is more. Not Longrow but close I say. If it was a 2nd fill cask I would have put my money on that it contained Longrow before (or Laphroiag!). But it's first fill. My best guess is that this is the run they did straight after they did a Longrow run. I know from people in the industry that they spend quite some efforts cleaning out the system after they have been running peaty batches to get ready for nonpeaty batches. I've always thought they should make some lightly peated stuff this way, and maybe Springbank have been doing this!

This is great stuff and I really enjoy the oilyness and the peat of this Bourbon Springer. Well done Jørn or maybe just a congratulations with the luck of getting a cask like this. Thanks for letting me try this :-)

Rating 90 

4 Whiskies bottled by Norse Cask

Glen Grant - Port Ellen - Rechlerich - Royal Lochnagar

The former danish importer of whisk(e)y and other spirits - Qualityworld, ran its own small independent bottler business, bottling around 10 casks a year. The whiskies were relatively cheap, you bought shares of 2-4 bottles approx 1½ year before the casks were bottled. QW unfortunately went bankrupt, but the reputation of their Norse Cask label lives on as a legend


Here's 4 of the bottles I haven't emptied yet and its some of their best ones:

1. Royal Lochnagar 1977 29yo 50.4%
Royal Lochnagar is a small distillery owned by Diageo. It's actually one of the smallest distilleries in Scotland, with only a big handfull or so that's smaller.  It's a very handmade malt and the company use the place to teach their employees the craft of fundemental whiskymaking. It's lesser known as single malt and hard to find as independent bottling. I have to admit I am not particulary impressed with anything I tasted that was released from the distillery and I can't recall other IB's but this one makes it up for everything
The nose is excellent. Sweet fruits, apples and pears - mixed with floor varnish!. Its fullbodied and oily, a bit of roasted wood emerging as well. Think an oily armagnac with a twist of wood
Rating 88

Glen Grant - Port Ellen - Royal Lochnagar - Rechlerich 

2. Glen Grant 1965 40yo 52.5%

Glen Grant used to be part of the Chivas group but they were forced to get rid of it for monopolistic reasons. Under Campari's and Dennis Malcolm's leadership a new approach has started. Beside co-working with and selling new-make to Gordon and MacPhail again, the distillery have extended their bottling range to a "sligthly" more exciting range. I didn't particulary like the 5yo/NAS and 10yo but the recent new bottlings are very good. Look for them if you havent tried allready

A few years ago I wanted to buy my mother a birthdaypresent so I decided for this Glen Grant 1967 which is my birthyear. When Norse Cask bottled it, they excused and said, we are sorry but its from 1965 not 1967.. well sometimes I really can't get myself to complain when things turn out different than promised :-)

This Glen Grant has a fruity acidity (tart?) on the nose, and a very spicy palate - I get some very powerful mintleaves, I'm actual put back 4 weeks when I did a vertical mint leave tasting in my parents japanese garden, trying out 4 or 5 different kinds. It's a very delicious dram, with a long minty-woody-spicy finish. Very Fresh
Rating 88

3. Port Ellen 1979 28yo 53.6%
A lot of people think that Port Ellen is overrated and recent bottlings has gone overage. I am a big fan of old Islays, especially the 5 peatier ones : Caol Ila, Ardbeg, Laphroaig, Port Ellen and Lagavulin, and I have to say that I like PE as well as the others. This is a classic old Islay with a the classic citrus+peat combo I tend  to find or describe quite often. The wood embraces the peat in a perfect match making this a great mouthfull, with a long, very long fresh minty finish..I think I got the mint pinpointed from the Glen Grant
Rating 90

4. Rechlerich 1964 40yo 53.5%
Well, Glenfarclas has the weird idea that other bottlers can't use their distillery name when they bottle Glenfarclas. So when you got a speysider with an alternative name (Speyside Finest, Speyside no. 1, Ballindalloch etc. it's probably a Glenfarclas). I think Glenfarclas are straight away wrong here, they simply miss a lot of free marketing. Most of my entrances to distilleries have been through independent bottlers, who bottle lot more varied casks, than what's available from the average distillery through OB's. And end of the day I prefer their kind of products (No caramel, single casks, no chillfiltration, full strength) opposed to distilleries who tend to do the exact opposite. Enough said, it been said plenty of times by me and a 1000 other anoraks :-)
This one is a sherry monster. Its very hard to find unflawed sherry whiskies, but here's a perfect one.
Liqeurice, vanilla, dried fruits. Its a very intense and powerful dram, one of the kinds that can only be sipped drop by drop. So its not easy drinking whisky, but it is very enjoyable whisky. The finish is neverending, you probably won't find longer finishes than this. If you're crazy with sherrymatured whisky you probably regret you didnt get hold of a bottle of this. 10 minutes after the last sip a bit of smoke/tobacco appeared. Amazing
Rating 90

Glen Grant - Port Ellen - Royal Lochnagar - Rechlerich

Whisky-Emporium got the last two of these blind together with 2 others. I think he did rather well, a fine set of tasting notes, and blind guessing is harder than you think..unless someone serves a Bowmore :-)

Read about it here : http://www.whisky-emporium.com/Blogs/2010-07-July/Blog.htm

Norse Cask bottlings might still be availbale here : http://www.qualityworld.dk/ (The above is most likeable sold out)