Swedish whisky from Box Distillery – 2nd Step Collection 03 51,3% ABV

Dear friends and followers! Today I received a sample from the nice people at Box Distillery, so once again it is time for me to share my thoughts on yet another swedish whisky! The sample contains the concluding and third part in their series entitled 2nd Step Collection. The information I have received states that the whisky has been predominantly matured in first fill bourbon casks, in fact 76% of the whisky has been matured in first fill bourbon casks. 19% has been matured in american virgin oak and finally 5% in virgin hungarian oak. The peating level is 38,6 ppm on average. For those of you interested in all the details of this particular bottling, Box Distillery has been kind enough to provide them here. 

Here in Sweden, this whisky will be released on the state monopoly the day after tomorrow (6th of april), 4000 bottles (out of 8291) will be available and you can view the product here 

Nose:

When pouring a dram from the sample, a beautiful and soft peatiness spreads throughout the room. When putting my nose towards the glass and softly breathing in I pick up a soft but very evident note of fir/christmas tree. Intermingling with that note is wall fern/polypody and beyond that is just a slight touch of building timbre. Given the fact that the majority of the whisky has been matured in first fill bourbon casks I had expetected there to be a quite big presence of vanilla, however that is not really the case, the thing in focus here is rather first of all the fir and second of all the building timbre. Trying to move beyond that layer I do spot some gentle peat and some kind of medium-salty saltyness so to speak, some kind of quite salty liquorice, maybe it’s the wall fern/polypody that pops up again? Anyways, all in all on the nose it’s a quite ”simple” dram we’ve got here with maybe three to four basic fragrances going on. So nothing is really popping out or ”disturbing”, everything is very well integrated. Ok, let’s see what we have on the taste

Taste:

Mmm, great whisky! As is mostly the case with peated Box matured predominatly in bourbon casks, everything starts off with a delicate mix of salt and sweet. But then, it quickly moves on into more salt. I swallow, and then comes at first even more salt, but very fast it moves on into quite intense peatyness, slowly moving on into whipped cream without added sugar, and then boom (!), there’s the vanilla (I’m glad you’re here because I love you very much). Then, in the aftertaste (and this is the greatness of this dram), the peat evolves more, and more, and more. Beautiful. It’s not a very dry peatyness, rather medium dry (or maybe not even medium dry), but I experience it as quite dry and that is due to the fact that the peat just goes on and on and on. Taking another sip, just after the initial salt I discover some kind of exotic fruit, I can’t really put my finger on it but is might be some kind of melon… or even soft guava… interesting. In the very last phase of the aftertaste the peat gives way to the soft vanilla which becomes more and more evident, slowly fading away

To sum up: 

It strikes me now that this is in fact a very mature expression of Box, maybe even the most mature Box I’ve ever tried. There are no traces of yeast or new make going on here, neither on the nose nor on the taste. And of course I knew on beforehand that this is the oldest whisky from Box Distillery yet to be released, and that might subconsiously affect my feeling that it’s the most mature Box yet. So let me phrase is another way, this expression and the components that have gone in to it are very, very, very well blended together. Great job fellas!

Big thanks to the nice people at Box Distillery for sharing a sample of this whisky and for the opportunity to review and try it before the release! Sláinte! Please make sure to follow my FB-page by clicking here, my twitter-page by clicking here, and my instagram by clicking here. Copyright © and All Rights Reserved on all tasting notes and text by SamuelWhisky and pictures likewise belong to SamuelWhisky, unless stated. If you would like to use any such material that belongs to SamuelWhisky or associated with SamuelWhisky, please ask by sending me an email to samuelkarlssonorebro[at]gmail.com

pic/copyright belongs to Box Distillery