Dear friends and followers alike! About a month ago I worked for Edrington at this years Whiskyexpo in Linköping. As I most often do I passed by the stand of Smögen Distillery to talk to Pär Caldenby (Master Distiller and Distillery Manager) to see if he had anything that he wanted me to review. Most willingly he shared a sample of their coming release called "Barrique!". Here in Sweden it will be released as a web launch this thursday (the 1st of March) and you can view it by clicking here.
Barrique consists of a vatting of four european (french) barriques (225 litre casks) that has previously matured Bordeaux-wine. The casks used are number 4, 23, 24, and 25. The casks were filled with newmake starting in september 2010 ranging through to december 2010. The whisky was bottled at 60,3% ABV (natural cask strength) on the 8th of january 2018 making the whisky 7 years old. The (officially) oldest whisky from Smögen Distillery so far. The casks gave 1685 bottles out of which 1320 are available via the web launch.
Ok folks, let's see what we have here!
Nose:
A delicious, and very soft, symphony consisting of: peaty sea-salt (peat and sea-salt at the same time), raw-sugar syrup, old (sweaty?) leather shoes, distillery warehouse with a tad of faint yeast, and finally red Bassett’s winegums (or maybe rather the swedish candy ferraribilar). In the very center of the nose is a very firm peated dark vanilla fudge (think: ordinary vanilla fudge cubes but darker and peated).
Taste:
Wow! This is definitely BIG whisky! Especially so on the peat, in fact, this is the peatiest whisky from Smögen I’ve ever had. The peat sure does have a real bite to it, wow… absolutely exellent mothfeel! It starts of classicaly Smögen-like with a mix of salty peat and sugar sweetness but it quickly moves on into a big peat that really grabs a hold of my mouth; the tounge, the (inside of my) cheeks, the back of my tounge, everything is effected by the dry tannins. When the tough side of the taste starts to cling of, the taste makes way for a beautiful softness that waters my mouth; the softness really makes way for the firm peated dark vanilla fudge that was on the nose, paired with an almost coffee-like soft peaty-ness that just goes on and on… for a brief moment the dryness of the tannins re-appear, but then everything becoms so soft again… wow
To sum up:
So, this my friends is how great and utterly mature 7 year old (!) whisky from Smögen Distillery can taste, wow! This is definitely THE best Swedish whisky I’ve tasted so far, no competition at all. So, is 7yo the peaking age for Smögen Distillery or can it be even better?! Boy do I long for the future ☺
Big thanks to Pär for the opportunity to try this release, and to be able to review it before the web launch. Please make sure to follow my FB-page by clicking here, my instagram by clicking here and my twitter-page 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 and by stating the source
