Highland Park – ICE 17 yo 53,9% ABV

Friends and followers! Two months ago (the 10th of march) I was very fortunate and lucky to attend the release event of Highland Park ICE at the Edrington head quarters in Stockholm, Sweden! I think you can all imagine that I was pretty excited to be one of the first people in Sweden, in the good company of other bloggers, whiskywriters, connoisseurs and guests, to try a new whisky from Highland Park Distillery!

When we entered the tasting room a beautifully decorated table met our eyes. 

Especially cool was, standing at the back of the room, the visually attracting BIG cube of Ice, with an actual bottle of the new whisky frozen in to it, cool right?! 

ICE in ice :)

I soon understood that we were not only going to taste ICE but also five additional whiskies from HP. The line-up consisted of 12yo, Dark Origins, 18yo, Harald, and Sigurd (followed by ICE). In my opinion, Dark Origins definitely kicked the living crap out of the other four first whiskies. (ICE did the same with the entire line-up!). 

the line-up of the evening!

Guiding us through the tasting and the release event, of course was non other than the very entertaining and highly knowledgeable Senior Brand Ambassador, Martin Markvardsen. 

Martin Markvardsen

The info on ICE that I received during the tasting was as follows: 

Yes, it has an age statement; 17yo, but moving all the way up 19yo. The strenght is 53,9% ABV (vatting strength rather than cask strength). ICE has been fully matured in firstfill bourbon casks, namely 250 litre hogsheads that has been rebuilt from 200 litre barrels. AND (!) the ends/lids of the casks consist of new american oak. Here in Sweden, 1400 bottles (out of 30k worldwide) will be released this Thursday at the swedish state monopoly (direct link here). It will cost 1999kr (approximately 200 euros). 

Martin and I after the tasting

Those of you following my facebook-page, know that I at the night of the event posted my quite brief tasting notes. Since I received a little goodiebag contatining a sample of ICE

and given the fact that some time has passed and the release here in Sweden is getting closer, I decided that it was time to do a second, in-depth tasting and share these impressions with you dear friends and followers. So here we go!

Nose:

The thing that first appears on the nose is that ICE is very, very, very rich on fruits. First and foremost ”tropical” fruits, in this case being peach (peach jellycandy), passionfruit, lemon and lime, even lemon jucie and/or lemon curd. We also have some really floral stuff. There’s also red apples and a slight touch of very ripe pear. Below the fruity layer is quite a big whiff of vanilla, light honey and also some almond paste. I would’nt say that there is much peat though, if there is peat in there, i’d say it’s presenting itself as something quite distant/fleeing, maybe moving towards leaves and bog, the early stages of autumn… very intriguing nose, a great experience just to nose this one in fact… (mmm, dreaming away…). But, I have to taste it of course!

Palate:

Begins very sugar-y-sweet, fruity (peaches and overripe banana) and vanilla for less than a second. Then everything indeed does explode! First into big, big, almond paste, nutty-ness (or rather ”almond-ness”), then very quickly comes some really green and bold herbs, and finally, what I’ve been waiting for, the PEAT! A very dry peat, drawing on gunpowder, peatbog, a medium big body/base. It really fills up your mouth. There is quite a lot of a ”strong” and powerful alcohol character in this phase of the palate, very mature/grown up, wow! In the aftertaste we have milk chocolate, warm vanilla and slight traces of coffee. Also, my mouth is watering although everthing is very dry towards the end…

an actual bottle of ICE!

To sum up: 

The nose does not at all reveal the power that is about to hit you on the palate! The explosion of tastes on the palate kind of sneeks up on you. All in all a really interesting dram that shows two very, very different sides of what Highland Park is or can be all about! A great dram for sure! Big thanks to Martin and to the nice people at Edrington for inviting me to attend this release event, and for the goodie bag! 

fellow blogger David (Tjeders Whisky), myself,
Emma from swedish whisky magazine "Allt om Whisky", and Martin

Copyright © and All Rights Reserved on all tasting notes 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@gmail.com

copyright of this pic belongs to Highland Park

Swedish whisky from Box – The Explorer 48,3% ABV!

Friends and followers! As you might remember, I very recently visited the Swedish distillery Box together with a small bunch of bloggers and colleagues alike, if you have not read that story yet, please check it out here. One of the reasons we were invited was to have an exclusive taste of their upcoming release The Explorer which will be released this friday, at least here in Sweden, so do check out the link to the release by clicking here! 

The Explorer is the third release in their series called the Early Days Collection. As you might know by now the people at Box Distillery are (and always will be) very, very, very open with their recipies and production process because they really want us to know what we are drinking, and how it was produced. This is of course the case also with The Explorer. 

So quoting (and translating) the press-release-kit I was provided with:

"The Explorer is mainly matured in bourbon casks, three different sizes, 40 litre, 100 litre, and traditional quarter casks at 130 litres. The ages vary from 3 years and 3 months, to roughly above 4 years. 61 percent of the whisky is peated, which gives The Explorer a quite smoky character. 

Much of the taste also comes from new oak. Ten percent of the casks are so called Fresh Oak, which contributes with lots of powerful tastes. The kinds of new oak used are three; swedish oak, hungarian oak and american oak. The casks have been charred from three given specifications; moving from medium charring up to heavily charring. The charring is of great significance for the features of the whisky and a very important part of the work behind the Early Days Collection"

Ok, sounds great, let's have a taste shall we?! 

Nose:

Gentle peat, soft smoke in mix with a very present but still restrained vanilla, sounds strange but it’s a bit hard to explain… to say that the vanilla definitely is there but not in the absolute foreground might be better… there is also some sugar-y-ish fudge, a bit of ”burned out campfire” (yay, my first time picking up campfire in a whisky!). I also pick up a touch of christmas tree, something citric but not very pronounced, the sweetness from overripe red apples… Veeery soft and quite fruity actually! Also, when it comes to the peat-profile/style of the peating itself, I kind of get a feeling of Connemara, yes! quite similar… (and you all know that I looove Connemara). One thing that is very obvious, compared to the previous releases is that on the nose there is no sign of, or anything at all reminding me of raw-spirit/new-make in this release. There was a wee bit of that in the previous releases, but non in this one. A very good sign. Let’s have a taste!

Palate:

The peat is the thing that hits the tounge first. More peat on the palate than I figured there would be judging from the nose! Very delicate mix of soft vanilla somewhere in the background of everything, but the most pronounced stuff on the palate, after the peat, is a variety of different fruits, sort of like overripe banana, peach (both the actual fruit and peach-candy), honey-melon, apple, a touch of new oak, and quite fire-y-ish wood so to speak… When holding the whisky in my mouth for a couple of seconds or three, really tasting it, almost ”chewing” the whisky, I find that first comes the peat, then the touches of/the feeling of new oak acts as a bridge that slowly moves on into the fruity stuff. An absolute seamless developement of tastes on the palate, I’m not kidding folks, this is very good stuff… such a great composition when it comes to the total balance and how the flavours develop and interact! And, as I observed on the nose with no ”new-make vibes”, it’s absolutely the same on the palate. Of course one feels that it is quite a young whisky, but this is very, very good for being this age, very smooth, this is definitely their best so far!

Finally, a big thanks to the nice people at Box Distillery for providing me with the opportunity to try The Explorer! 

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picture belongs to/copyright Box Distillery

Tasting the Swedish whisky Box 3yo – ’The Pioneer’ 48,1% ABV

Friends! On this very warm summer day (at least here in Sweden), I will taste the first release from the northern Swedish distillery Box! The name of this first release is ’The Pioneer’ for reasons we can all understand ☺ 

Now, Box is the 6th active distillery in Sweden to release ”fully matured” whisky (3yo as the law requires). So far I have tasted Mackmyra (but not done any tasting note here on the blog), Smögen and a couple of weeks ago I tasted Hven and they have all been really good so I’m really excited to try whisky from Box! Their name has had a very good international reputation ever since whisky experts around the world for the first time tried their new-make. I’ve never tried anything from Box before so, again, very excited. 

Box are (and will be) very very very open with their recipies and production process and so they really want us to know how this first bottling is composed, so for swedish followers please take time to read about that here. 

A short version of the recipie reads as follows: 50% of the whisky is unpeated and matured in 40 litre bourbon casks, 35% of the whisky is 31ppm peated malt and matured in 40 litre bourbon casks, the rest, 15% unpeated and matured in 200 litre bourbon casks and that part has in turn been transferred to 100 litre new charred swedish oak casks. All in all this gave 6508 bottles out of which 5000 went to the swedish state monopoly and sold out in one day (!) Ok, let’s try this one!    

Nose:

At the absolute first nosing, coming straight from the sample bottle, I only get things reminding me of alcohol/new spirit etcetera. Now the whiskey has been in the glass for 15 minutes, the new spirit-touch is still there but more in the background, we also have a very big almost sugar-y sweetness in combo with some very light liquid honey (”akacia” sort of)… There’s also a quite small or mellow layer of peat with something citric behind it… I also pick up something kind of green, not herbal but maybe a touch of un-ripe honey melon… The whisky has now been in the glass for 30 minutes, the spirit-touch is ”still” in the centre of the nose together with something salt liquorice-ish. To me, my (first) impression is that this is a somehow quite anonymous whisky, at least on the nose but it does not have to be so on the palate, maybe my expectations are too high…  Anyways, let’s have a taste and see what the fuzz is all about ☺

Palate:
Mmm! Very nice indeed, definitely the perfect/optimal strength for this flavor and this style of whisky which creates a nice balance. The first thing I pick up is a quite salty and peaty start that really grabs a hold of my tounge. The flavors after that really do delvelope very slowly and almost seamless, good work fellas! We have fudge and soft vanilla, in other words stuff reminding of bourbon maturation, there’s touches of almond paste or maybe more of marzipan actually, a touch of bread yeast in combo with a very very small new spirit-touch, a little spicyness… Medium dry at the very end of the aftertaste, but oh soo calm, and that sugary sweetness from the nose is there on the palate, especially in the aftertaste… Overall on the palate, we have a lot more going on than on the nose, absolutely not anonymous on this side of things, in fact, probably very good for being this young. Extra points for the perfect strength for this particular flavor, nice!

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Tasting the swedish Whisky Smögen ’Primör’ 3yo 63,7% ABV

Yay! On the 13th of March, the day after tomorrow, swedes will finally be able to purchase yet another swedish Whisky at the state monopoly ’systembolaget’ (through a web-release)! Smögen Whisky, founded in 2009 and located on the west-coast of Sweden, is launching their first whisky which is a three year old composition of nine casks made out of european oak. One of the casks was a 225 litre ’Barrique’ that previously held Bourdeaux-wine, the remaining eight casks were new charred 110 litres casks so this should be interestin. The barley is peated to 45ppm. The batch resulted in 2188 bottles out of which 1600 goes to the state monopoly. 

I am very grateful to Pär Caldenby, the owner and master distiller of Smögen, who very generously shared a sample, during this years Linköping Whisky Expo. Thank you Pär! 

Nose:

With no water added this is obviously very strong whisky! It’s so strong that the peat and the alcohol strength itself are the two main characters in this drama that are fighting to win the battle of attention. Still, trying to grasp the peat at this high strength, it’s robust and quite farmy but somehow still very soft. Interesting style of peat! At this strength the whisky is also quite ”botanical”. Beneath all this in the top layer, that is hard but not impossible to get past, I find a beautiful and very soft vanilla and a nice malty nose. Okay, let’s add some water to see what happens (I add water to another glass so I can nose and taste parallell…) 

With just a little bit of water, maybe 10 small drops into the same amount of whisky that’s in the picture of the glass, the whisky really settles down on the high strength, everything get’s reaaaaaally smooth and very malty. Now we have an almost biscuit-y (digestive crackers) and buttery nose. Some really nice fudge coming through. The peat also calms down of course but at the same time it developed into a quite sweet, almost brownsugar-y and almond-y peat.

Palate:

Returning to the glass with no water added, let’s have a taste. Oooh! This is great, for sure. It starts of on a very sort of salty peat. The strength actually isn’t too much (or is this a warning sign?). Of course you can almost feel the whisky evaporate from the tounge up your mouth but still, it’s very beautiful at this strength. There is lot’s of different fruit-y-ness, the main stuff is sultana raisins, something reminding me of baked or dried apples, but also moving over into sun-warm red grapes. This fruit-y-ness is complemented by a hint of poitin-spirit. Everything get’s quite dry after 4-5 seconds and the dominant aftertaste definitely is that brownsugar-y peat. Very nice! 

Let’s turn to the glass with just a little bit of water: Oh yeah, adding to the above, there is now a nice fudge and vanilla combination that comes first, but quite fast after that I get the very salty peat back, then malt-y-ness, just a tiny touch of poitin and finishing of on digestive crackers, unwhipped cream and soft peat… 

Well, let’s send a big congratulations to Pär for his very exciting and interesting whisky. I’d say that all in all this is a very mature 3 year old! Well done and Slainthé!