Dear friends, followers and supporters alike! A couple of days I received a package from my two good friends Patrik and Mikael, the founders of the all new swedish independent bottler named Selected Malts! To my great joy the package contained their second bottling, wiihooo!
This time around we are talking about a Royal Brackla that has first been matured in a single bourbon hogshead and then transferred for a final maturation/finish in two 128 litre european oak 1st-fill oloroso sherry quarter casks. The whisky was bottled at cask strength, no filtration and likewise no coloring was done! The casks gave 397 bottles. This whisky will be released at the swedish state monopoly this monday (23:rd of April) through the "order-assortment". You can view the whisky by clicking here. Ok folks, let's see what we have here!
Nose:
The first thing that strikes me is that this whisky is very vinous (red wine), actually almost drawing towards a slight touch of (red) glühwein spices. Above that layer I find very delicate notes of peach candy together with a very mellow, but quite thin, vanilla. Shaking the whisky vividly to stir up some more notes/scents I actually get something reminding me of port wine. The whisky calms down after the stir and now I discover ripe fresh rhubarb that intermingles perfectly with the peach and the vanilla. All in all the notes on the nose is like a fight between the bourbon hogshead and the oloroso quarter casks, between vanilla and the vinous stuff. Very interesting! Ok, what about the taste?!
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| Borrowed from Selected Malts |
Taste:
Fascinating! It actually starts of quite salt-y, I did not expect that at all! Before the salt, for a split second, there is however some very mellow and rich vanilla, but then comes the salt and after just two seconds or so I realise that the salt is clearly infused with ”sour” raisins (perhaps better described as red grapes on their way of becoming raisins). Intermingling with the strange grapes are definitely freshly squeezed rhubarb juice (if there ever was such a thing…). However, all of these rapid tastes mellows down rather quickly and gives way to an absolutely beautiful mix of almond paste and/or marzipan coupled with a big vanilla. In the aftertaste there are still traces of the salt-y beginning, but most of all the aftertaste is dry, dry, and dry, with traces of fresh ginger. The aftertaste ends with ”vapours” of almond paste rising to the roof of my mouth together with leather-y vanilla.
To sum up:
On the nose this whisky does not at all behave like a standard/classic sherry finish would (with raisins and figs etcetera), rather the sherry behaves like red wine and the nose is therefore quite confusing with it’s fight between the two types of casks involved. The great thing about the taste is that it opens up on salt and then moves into the mellow and rich vanilla. Also, the taste really evolves in my mouth, a true journey of flavours! A job well done selecting this whisky (with it’s unusual elements on both nose and taste), so that the whisky nerds in Sweden can taste something truly different. Sláinte!
Big thanks to the guys at Selected Malt for the opportunity to try their second release and for the opportunity to be able to review it before its release! 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 dot com and by stating the source.
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| Borrowed from Selected Malts |
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