Broadening the horizon, or how to battle whisky fatigue

It’s arguably one of the most 1st world – like problems out there: option overkill.  By which I mean having a plethora of options to choose from but simply nothing seems to satisfy your senses. The cliché of the wealthy spoiled brat standing in front of a wardrobe the size of a small house complaining she’s got nothing to wear, or finding yourself parked on your couch, endlessly changing the channels on the TV. ’57 channels and nothin’ on…’

I’ve got a decent amount of bottles in my cabinet at any given moment, and flavour wise, I feel I’ve pretty much got the whole spectrum covered and then some.  From  a few bog standard blends to cater to highballs or cocktails all the way to some premium bottles, well-aged gems and heavily peated top notch stuff and pretty much everything in between. But lately I’ve been struggling to find satisfaction. I still like what I drink, and enjoy what’s in my glass, but very little, including those otherwise guaranteed winners,  seems to grab me, captivate me,  ‘wow’ me.

So whisky fatigue is real at Malty Towers. Question is: what am I going to do about it? Going back and forth, considering things, I ended up with a few options.

1.      Push the envelope even further and deliberately seek out some high end stuff in order to find something that really thrills me. I pretty much immediately dismissed this option on the basis that it would likely cost me a good deal of money with no guarantee I would find a return on investment in the form of satisfied tastebuds.

2.      Slow down and push the pause button. Just taking a break every now and then is never a bad thing when talking alcohol. And indeed, I have slowed down a bit with my alcohol consumption. I rarely ever drink on week days/nights in any case, but rather than ‘desperately’ seeking those flavours to rediscover the joy and excitement from a favourite whisky when it’s just not happening, I think it’s better than just leave them be for a while.

3.      Broaden the horizon. Still slowing down with my consumption, but also deliberately and purposefully trying some malternatives. There’s plenty of excellent spirits out there, so perhaps thee best way to get back into my beloved whisky, is to indeed ignore them for a while and ‘cheat’ on them. Variety is the spice of life, after all!

From a blogger’s perspective, option number 3  seems like the more interesting one. It’ll make for a fun little experiment for me and hopefully you as well. In any case, I’m already pretty sure it’ll make for a humbling experience, as I’ll dip my toe into drinks I’m quite unfamiliar with, or at least by no means as familiar with as I am with whisky. So if you’ll indulge me and are willing to be lenient with me as I explore new things and chase new flavours, in the coming weeks I’ll jump into stuff like Cognac, Armagnac, grappa, rum and jenever. Not hindered by knowledge or experience, I’ll tap into these things from a whisky drinker’s angle and perspective and see what’s what. What’s more, because I can’t possibly tell you whether I think they’re worthy maltenrnatives for our beloved whisky, I’ll do my best not to base my opinion on just the one experience, but rather try -at least- two to see what’s what.

Let’s start this with a drink very much rooted into the culture of the Lowlands. Those ‘other’ Lowlands, that is.

Jenever: the forgotten gem and an ‘ancestor’ of whisky (?)

To many, ourselves included, Belgium is synonymous with beer. And indeed, we can pride ourselves with some rich history, provenance, pedigree and tradition when it comes to beer. From light and easy drinking lager to fruity summery beers and  the acquired taste of sour Geuze, all the way to heavy hitting Trappist or other ‘Abbey style’ beers: much like whisky, Belgian beers cater to just about any occasion and any flavour profile. But there’s also jenever, a bit of an overlooked and near forgotten spirit rooted deep into the history of this region.As we share a lot of history and culture with our northern neighbours from the Netherlands, it makes sense that when it comes to food and drink, there are some overlaps and shared traditions to be found. One of those long lasting yet often grossly underrated and underappreciated shared traditions, is that of jenever.

OK, there’s a fair bit of history and background coming up, so feel free to skip the following bit if that feels like TLDR. One thing though, I wont point out every obvious parallel between whisky and jenever, but I’m sure you’ll find some…

It’s safe to say jenever is part of the Dutch and Belgian cultural heritage, as we’ve been distilling the stuff for over 500 years here, in different shapes and forms. The big question these days, however, is: who’s drinking it?

Much like whisky, the base ingredients for jenever are the same: grain, yeast and water. The mashbill for jenever usually consists of a mixture of 3 main grain varieties: rye, barley and corn, occasionally with a fourth – wheat- in the mix as well. The start and build up of turning these grains into jenever is again very similar to the whisky making process. Malt it, mash it, ferment it, distil it. The main difference being that at a certain point in the production process, a second distillate of juniper berries is added (for young jenever this is usually added to the spirit and then 'blended' together before bottling. With older, cask matured jenever, the juniper distillate is added after the ageing process of the grain distillate).

This tradition dates back to the days of ‘aqua vitae’ -  the water of life, in the 16th century. Aqua vitae was attributed with medicinal qualities, and adding herbs, spices and certain fruits to it, it was said,  fortified and enhanced these medicinal characteristics. By the end of the 16th century the production of jenever was common practice throughout the Lowlands. Pretty much every household with some money and grain to spare had its own diy distillation set-up, existing side by side with  some more ‘upscale’ (semi-) professional distilleries. So much so, that overproduction and over consumption were deemed problematic and the government stepped in, outlawing the production and consumption of brandy and barley wine. (On a side note: it was during these times of civil unrest and religious wars that English soldiers operating on Dutch and Belgian soil ‘made their acquaintance’ with jenever, and as a consequence, gin – a direct ‘bastard’ son of jenever,  was created in England. If you fancy your London dry: you’re welcome, by the way.)

Apart from one or two specific towns and regions, in most of the Lowlands under catholic Spanish rule, jenever went underground throughout most of the 17th century, before prohibition was lifted under the Austrian regime in the 1700’s. The main reasons for the new rulers to be lenient were, apart from obvious taxation possibilities, also the fact that the side product of draff came in very handy to feed cattle during the harsh winter months. (On another side note: a lot of  those early whisky barons of Scotland -the likes of the Haig and Bells’ family – brought in expertise from Dutch jenever distilleries and it’s assumed that the copper pot still now so symbolic for single malt whisky is in fact based on those used by Dutch jenever distillers from the late 18th – early 19th century).

Obviously, things really took lift off during the industrial revolution of the 19th Century, as mechanisation and new technologies allowed for mass scale production, alongside a lot of new raw materials (mainly corn and potatoes, also sugar and molasses) becoming available for distillation purposes. This  industrialisation meant that the traditional, flavourful  jenever made from barley wine was ‘modernized’, as new techniques (and legislation) allowed for quite a lot of neutral ethanol to be used in the distillation and production processs.

In Belgium and the Netherlands,  they refer to this as ‘young’ grain jenever (made from maximum 15% barleywine, bottled at a minim of 35% ABV) ) vs ‘old’ grain jenever (made from more than 15% barleywine and bottled at a minimum of 35% ABV). The indication of ‘young’ and ‘old’ refers more to the traditions and methods applied and has nothing to do with its actual age, although usually, ‘young’ jenever tends to be an unaged distillate to which the distillate of juniper and possible other fruits and herbs are added. 100% grain jenever remains quite common as well, and the minimal ABV in Belgium was set at 30% ABV.

This mass production of both quality spirit and  cheap, neutral booze got somewhat out of hand, again, and  in turn led to the government (in Belgium) once more putting a leash on things. Probably with good reason too. After all, by the mid-19th century, there were approximately over 1000 active distilleries in Belgium (most of them small scale, obviously, but a few bigger ones were operating as well) and the average consumption in Belgium was about 9.5 litres of 50% ABV spirit per person per year. The equivalent of well over 13 bottles of 70 cl. Emphasis here on ‘average consumption’, as this number refers to the entire population.

Oddly enough, the wrath of the taxmen was aimed not at those big booze plants, but rather again at the smaller scale farmers who were distilling on the side. Due to this restrictive legislation in the 20th century, consumption of jenever was in steady decline for decades and decades. On top of that, it had to deal with a not insignificant image problem. Deemed ‘an old man’s drink’, the traditional stone jug was something any self-respecting partying youth would not be caught dead with. To counter this tendency of decreasing interest, a lot of producers started ranges of  young jenevers from mainly neutral ethanol, brought down to around 20-25% ABV with added flavours of just about any fruit possible, or by adding other flavours like chocolate or vanilla, meant to be consumed as shots.

In recent years, the interest in jenever seems to pick up a bit. In the bigger wave of renewed interest in authenticity, craft, locality and local products, cultural and culinary heritage, jenever simply couldn’t be left out. Small scale, artisanal craft producers are reintroducing long lost brands and recipes, while some of the bigger producers in both Belgium and the Netherlands are working hard to revitalise the interest in (and consumption of) one of our shared national drinks. Two of which I’ll be looking to review today.

 Filliers 17 yo genever. 44% ABV. Bourbon cask matured.  App. € 60 -€70

Filliers distillery is one of few remaining large scale jenever distilleries in Belgium. Founded in 1869, it was originally built as a farm, where they used to distil on the side with the surplus of their grain harvests. Gradually things evolved, putting the focus more towards distilling since 1880 to eventually fully focus on producing spirits. Now, 6 generations on, they’re heading towards 150 years of being a family owned and run distillery. Ever since the late 1960’s they’ve been experimenting with cask ageing their jenever, and some of their high end products consist of jenever that’s been aged for 30 to 40 years, or even longer.

I visited Filliers earlier this year – one of the perks of my job -  where we were given the full tour by master distiller Pedro Saez del Burgo. It’s a really fascinating place to visit, as they’re probably the only distillery out there to incorporate 3 different distilleries on site: next to their jenever, they also produce gin and whisky (both single malt and rye whisky), using a different set-up for each of these products (with the rye whisky coming from their jenever stills) as well as  some liqueurs. While jenever is still at the heart and soul of the distillery, it’s likely that gin (which they’ve been producing on and off since the late 1920’s) is now their bread and butter. Jenever still suffers somewhat from an old fashioned, and dare I say, out of fashion image and while it seems to attract some new attention in recent times, it still has a long way to go. Their core range consists of both classic ‘old’ and ‘young’ grain jenevers, unaged, 3 year old and 5 year old  in either glass bottles or stone jugs, a plethora of fruit and flavoured jenevers and a series of premium jenevers, made from 100% barley wine, consisting of an unaged expression, an 8 yo, a 12 yo, a 17 yo and a 21 yo. I’ve tried most of these and I’m reviewing the 17 yo for you, as I feel that’s the best of the bunch.

Filliers distillery entrance. Some huge silo's in their courtyard

Nose

Spices, nuts and chocolate. A faint green – eucalyptus note  lingers underneath, which makes me believe there’s quite a bit of rye that went into  in the mashbill for this one. The age and the casks have put a bit of a leash on the spirit character here, but still allow it enough room to shine through. There’s a chewy – buttery element as well, going into a clay and dough like aroma, which only adds to the character. Overall it comes across as the missing link between malt whisky, rye and, indeed, jenever.

Palate

Spices, wet oak and wood with still plenty of grain notes, surprisingly. Dark, almost bitter chocolate, dark roasted nuts and coffee. Fudge and toffee, with a gentle ‘spiky’, funky touch to things.

Finish

That green – funky and grainy note, mixed in with plenty of nuttiness and chocolate.

Final thoughts

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Filliers first released this series of aged jenevers around 2018-2019. With a shy, yet still wavering renewed interest in jenever, releasing age stated jenevers would likely attract the attention of whisky afficionados as well (and it worked). This ticks a lot of my boxes of what I’m looking for in  a malternative. It’s interesting and intriguing, and brings plenty of flavour and its own character to the party. This is in fact my second bottle over the years. I don’t reach for this very often, but I like to offer it whenever I have guests over who are not averse to a nice and interesting after dinner dram. In my opinion, it’s by no means a true representation of what jenever tends to be, because, as I said, it sort of fills a gap between aged jenever,  malt whisky and rye (assuming there was a gap there that needed to be filled, of course). It’s a bit peculiar, and to me one of those things you need to be in the mood for. Nonetheless, a good quality Belgian spirit, and therefore something to cherish! 84/100

Zuidam 4 yo genever (2017 – 2021). Madeira cask matured. 38% ABV, NC, UCF. Free 200 ml ‘sample’, app. €30-€40

Coincidence has it that I got to visit Zuidam distillery recently as well. It’s a good hour drive from where I live, and as it’s only open to visit by appointment, me and my buddy Stuart had the place to ourselves when owner, head distiller and manager Patrick gave us a +2 hour tour. Their whisky stills are surprisingly large and it really is a grain to glass distillery, as they too either own or work closely with farms in the vicinity. I wish I could elaborate further on Zuidam and Millstone (although I did cover them here and here), but as this is hovering towards a 3000 words review, I’ll just leave it at that.

Nose

A subtle creamy sensation nestled cosily alongside signature rye like green and spice notes. Clove, stewed fruit and marmalade, with hints of chocolate, sultanas and raisins. Some nutty elements as well, with hazelnut, walnut and chestnut and that creaminess now manifesting itself as almond milk. There’s a lot going on, but the delivery is balanced and subtle. Absolutely wonderful, in fact.

Palate

Rich arrival, lots of spices and fruit again with clove and  cooked berries. Far less of that green rye spiciness shining through, although they’re still somewhat noticeable as the foundation on which the notes coming from the casks can build. Overall on the palate there’s much from the nose translating, and also like on the nose overall it’s rich but never overpowering. Even at 38% ABV it brings plenty of flavour. You might argue that it’s a bit thin on the mouthfeel, but in the end that takes very little away from this utterly gorgeous dram.

Finish

Medium long. Slightly clinging, with raisins and other red fruit and the grainy notes lingering on.

Final thoughts

This may not be whisky, but it’s absolutely gorgeous. A near perfect balance and harmony between the mashbill, spirit and the cask. Lovely stuff! 86/100

I may not have chosen two typical jenevers, but as said, I’m coming at this from a whisky enthusiast’s angle and as a consequence, I find myself being drawn toward some of those longer matured expressions. Not all jenevers are cask matured, in fact most of them aren’t, but these two examples show how they fit the bill when on the lookout for malternatives. Despite the lower ABV and despite the shorter maturation, I feel the Zuidam, be it by a margin, is the one to go for.

Ok, this one was a long one to kick off a series, and if you’ve come this far: thanks for sticking till the end. I feel I needed to elaborate a bit here as jenever may be by far the most unknown of the spirits I plan on covering in this series. Next week, I’ll keep it nice and simple and on familiar ground, as I’ll dig into a few rums.  A spirit I know very little about but am keen to discover.

Filliers master blender Pedro in front of the 'malt wine' stills

At Filliers, the wash is distilled in (impressive) columns stills first and then transferred into alambique - like pot stills for a second distillation.