Östgöta Sädes Brännvin/'Eastern-Sweden malt and grain schanapps'

Dear friends and followers! It's time to celebrate midsummer here in Sweden!

The way we usually do that is to accompany the traditional herring, potatoes, eggs and sourcream with some swedish schnapps. This year I decided to go with the 'Eastern-Sweden malt and grain schnapps'!

This schnapps is based on a malt and grain destillate that has been matured in oak casks and after maturation spiced with honey and raisins! Ok, let's try it!

Nose:

Very faint touches of dry grape-peel in combo with light sultana raisins. Not that overly evident alcohol for being ”brännvin/schnapps”. Quite malty actually, very interesting nose. Some touches of honey melon and a slight vanilla somwhere in the background… really soft spirit when you nose it like this in a grappa-glass!

Palate:

This schnapps for sure is whisky-esque! Starts of with a tad of salt liqorice and Poitin, then very light honey with ginger. We also have the sultanas from the nose. After a while there is a soft oakyness, which developes quite fast into a kind of dry maltyness. I strongly recommend malt-heads to try this one!

To sum up:

This one works very well at room temperature (although the swedish schnapps traditionally is served at freezer-cold temperature) and served in company of wonderful strawberrys and whipped cream J Just as I was served by my beautiful wife right now... Sláinte!

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Connemara ’Ambassadors Choice’ 8yo 49% ABV

Friends! Two weekends ago I did a tasting for some friends. The tasting consisted of  three Connemaras, two Laphroaigs and a Clynelish. What was special about the tasting, apart from being in great company with really nice people, was that I actually opened up a bottle from my small Connemara-collection.

Now it wasn’t any ordinary Connemara but a single bourbon cask matured Connemara for Belgium only, chosen by Cooley brand ambassador Aoife O’Sullivan. The bottle I opened was no. 206 of circa 230. The whiskey was distilled 2001-03-27 and bottled 2009-08-24. You might think I’m crazy opening up such a rare bottle, and on top of that signed by Aoife herself (!)… No I’m not crazy, whiskey is made to be tasted! Oh by the way, I have another bottle of this one J 

Ok, since I didn’t have time to do a tasting note during the tasting, let’s do it now!

Nose:

Incredibly soft! Probably the softest Connemara I’ve ever nosed. Huge vanilla dominance. Beneath that we have a layer of peach-candy, some other very red/orangey notes and of course the peat, which in this case is soooo gentle… The earthy/forresty/green notes that I often find in different bottlings of Connemara, and I would also say is the basic characteristic of Connemara, is basically just there in the distant so here we really have a focus on the vanilla and the peach. It’s hard to belive that this one is only 8yo, the incredible softness suggests an older whiskey than that…

Palate:

Oh yeah, it really is soft on the palate too… a bit salty just in the very start of the palate, also a bit dry, but mainly softness. The basic composition of this Connemara really is vanilla, peach-candy and peat, just as on the nose, but we also have something quite creamy, fudge and just a tad dryness reminding me of something almondy… We also have a touch of arrack mixed with some very ”liquorice-y liquorice”, not salt – not sweet, hard to explain… again this is a very soft dram, I can’t even feel the 49% which I think is one of the things that makes this particular bottling so tasty J

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