Svenska Eldvatten – Wheskykôrka 2016 6yo first fill Single Pedro Ximenez Hogshead 57,3% ABV

Friends and followers! This thursday (the 21st of April), people living in Sweden will be able to order the latest release from independent bottler Svenska Eldvatten ("Swedish Firewater"). The whisky will be available from 10 o'clock following this link.

This time around it's the third release in their series of bottlings called "Wheskykôrka". Now, as you might remember the name Wheskykôrka is a play with words of a famous Gothenburg seafood market called Feskekôrka (Fish-church) thus being modified into slightly west-coast dialect resulting in Wheskykôrka simply meaning Whiskychurch.

And of course I am very happy and thankful that Peter and Tommy has given me the opportunity to try the whisky before its release! On the facebook-page of Svenska Eldvatten they describe this third bottling in the following way (freely translated from swedish):

"Very smoky/peated and matured in a PX-sherry hogshead [250 litre] makes this bottling stand out very much from the previous editions of Wheskykôrka. Also, the two previous bottlings have been produced at Bunnahabhain, but this time around the whisky comes from another big distillery on Islay... Wheskykôrka 2016 was distilled in march 2009 and in november 2015 we bottled 246 bottles at a cask strenght of 57,3% ABV"

That being said, this is to be understood as a secret malt or as we say, a "bastard" malt! Exciting, right?! Ok, let's see what's on the nose!

cask sample of Wheskykôrka 2016

Nose:

Very, very peaty! The first thing that comes to mind besides the peaty-ness is something like band aid or plaster, meaning very medicinal. The peaty-ness also includes things like big whiffs of rubber, or even burnt rubber. Underneath that layer is something like smoked vanilla-chocolate in combination with sweet liquorice and pipe-tobacco. There is black pepper, some different herbs that seems impossible to pin down, and also something reminding me slightly of dark honey… wow, this is complex stuff indeed. But let me tell you people, it’s really hard to go beneath the top layer of peaty-ness, the peat covers almost all the other things on the nose… ok, let’s have a sip shall we?!

Palate:

Ooh! Very peaty indeed! In fact, big fat smoke in combination with a sugar- and citric-sweetness, at least for the first 2-3 seconds but then instantly a quite extreme salty-ness takes over, wow, that was quick! Once I’ve swallowed, back comes that enormous peat, or rather medicinal rubber smoke, and takes over. This is powerful and warming stuff! A huge dryness dominates everything in the aftertaste, giving in to the herbs and the black pepper… it’s almost like my mouth is filled with smoke from a chocolat-y cigarillo, after a few seconds my mouth starts to water immensly… slight, slight touches of honey in the distant… this was a really interesting experience, a real beast!

To sum-up:

The agressive-ness surely is related to the age, the fact that the whisky is not so old, but let me say that I really don not experience the whisky as being ”too young” or immature, rather just BIG. Also I’ve never really felt or experienced PX-maturation expressing itself like this before. In fact, it's very brutal in style!

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picture/copyright belongs to Svenska Eldvatten

Tasting the all new Wheskykôrka 56,1% ABV (Single Sherrybutt Bunnahabhain) from ’Svenska Eldvatten’

On the 1st of April swedish independent bottler ’Svenska Eldvatten’ (’Swedish Firewaters’) released yet another exciting whisky at the swedish state monopoly liquor store. Tommy and Peter was very kind to send me a sample and I was very happy to receive it two days after the release, especially since it sold out that same day! 

The name of the whisky is a play with words of a famous Gothenburg seafood market called Fiskekôrka (Fishchurch) thus being modified into Wheskykôrka (Whiskychurch).

Anyway, the whisky is described as a more than usually peated Bunnahabhain matured in a single sherrybutt that was laid down in 1990 and bottled in 2012. The strength being 56,1% ABV. The cask was split between two local whiskyclubs and Svenska Eldvatten leaving 113 bottles for them to release. 

For whiskyfans outside of Sweden some of Svenska Eldvattens whiskies and rhums recently became available at ’Master of Malt’ so please check it out! Okey, let’s try it!   

Nose:

Very soft! The peat is definitely in the background. The sherry-influence is not overpowering, which of course I didn’t really expect judging from the color (but somewhere in my mind I guess heavy sherry was what I longed for ☺). Anyway the sherry-influence is rather soft. What there is a lot of though is milk chocolate, touches of cacao, in combo with some sort of distant mint. The sherry has left it’s mark though with things like very very soft caramelised melted raw sugar and really sugary sultana raisins. The alcohol is hardly traceable so everything is really soft… a wonderful interplay between the elements of this whisky! When really putting my nose deep in the glass and taking a deep breath there are lots of excotic elements, mostly on citric. Well, my mouth sure is watering which means it’s time to see what’s on the palate!

Palate: 

Aha! There is quite some sherry-influence on the palate, but mostly picking up on the caramelised sugar together with the raisins that was there on the nose. Maybe it’s re-fill sherry? Anyhow, in the very center of the palate, or what might be described as the focus of the whisky, we have a steady, firm, peaty-ness. Again, it’s not bursting with peat, not overly peated, but rather, firm and very much present. Surrounding this we have the excotic fruits from the nose, there is something citric yes, but here we also have pears, apples, and even a touch off passion fruit, things that I normally associate with bourbon-matured whisky. Finishing of is something almondy, some dried herbs and strangely enough a little little little aftertaste of ale/beer or it’s probably a malty-ness that I’m picking up on? Yeah, that’s probably it!

To sum up:

I think this Bunnahabhain was a very interesting experience, interesting combinations both on the nose and on the palate. Things are very well integrated here people! I was a little bit confused longing for big sherry-influence and huge peat, but no matter, this is a really pleasent experience and I’m really happy to have had the chance to try it, so once again a big thanks to Tommy and Peter of the Svenska Eldvatten, Sláinte! 

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