Review 226. Broadening the horizon part3: off the wall Swedish whisky

If you were to ask me roughly 5 years ago which country might be the one to look out for when talking about whisky from outside of Scotland or Ireland, I think I might well have answered Sweden. At the time, there were a lot of interesting and exciting things happening – Mackmyra was priding itself on its energy-efficient and innovative ‘vertical’ / ‘gravitational’ distillery and its rather spectacular and unusual warehousing facilities (an abandoned underground mine).  With Sweden still a bit terra incognita when talking whisky, Mackmyra had become the nation’s flagbearer, whether they liked it or not. Meanwhile High Coast (formerly known as ‘Box Distillery’) was starting to make a name for themselves with some very decent quality releases and already back then, Smögen was establishing itself as a bit of a ‘If You Know, You Know’ sort of distillery – producing on a low scale but quite the afficionado’s darling – not unlike Dornoch in that regard.

And while the above to this day likely still applies to the last 2, we all know how things went sideways with Mackmyra, as they filed for bankruptcy in August last year. If anything Mackmyra going bust should have been a bit of a wake-up call to many (but perhaps due to the fact that it happened to a Swedish distillery, seemingly it didn’t) as in hindsight they were arguably the first of the domino bricks to fall. Even though it seems Mackmyra is saved from a permanent and definite closure after former board member Lennart Hero (what’s in a name) acquired the distillery in a collaboration with an investment company 2 months after filing for bankruptcy, it’s fair to say the news of distilleries going bust – while perhaps unexpected to the outside world – seemed inevitable as the market looks all but over saturated. Nonetheless the fact that it was Sweden’s leading distillery that took the first blow still came as a surprise. To me certainly. And while of course Mackmyra’s situation tells us absolutely nothing about the general state of Swedish whisky, I can imagine it will have made a bit of an impression on their peers.

One of which is the aforementioned High Coast distillery, which I reviewed twice on this blogsite (one here and another somewhere in the hot mess of my archives). With a production capacity of some 300’000 LPA it’s not exactly a juggernaut but by no means at craft or unobtanium level either as it sits in the same ballpark as Glasgow, Ardnamurchan and Raasay, all producing between 200,000 and 500,000 LPA. Even more so, when things were still very much hunkydory in whiskyland, High Coast ‘s head distiller Roger Melander won the title of Distillery Manager of the Year 2021 Rest of the World by Icons of Whisky. Now I’m generally not bothered by awards and prices, but free publicity of that calibre and the attention that comes with it is not to be snubbed.

High Coast 8 year old (Adelphi). 2021 release, 62.3% ABV, matured in a first fill bourbon cask.

One thing I feel is exemplary of how whisky now very much is a world wide thing, is the willingness of indie bottlers to go beyond the realms of Scotland when looking to bottle and release  interesting whisky. That Boutique-y Whisky Company does it regularly (Nantou, Teerenpeli and so on), Dràm Mòr has done a few Millstone releases and Adelphi also released something Swedish with this release a few years back. Now obviously Adelphi has a bit of a Swedish connection in the person of the wonderful Jenny Karlsson, but I don’t know for sure if she had anything to with this particular release. It’s a bit funny  how things can turn out. Not even a decade ago, Adelphi was best known for providing us with usually quite high quality indie releases. Nowhere near the scale of Gordon & Macphail or Cadenhead’s – in fact usually somewhat scarce and sometimes hard to find even – catering by and large to the more discerning whisky enthusiasts among us. Today they can pride themselves in having established one of the most revered and celebrated 21st Century distilleries. Anyway…

Nose

Sweet peat, vanilla and sweet antiseptic notes mixed in with fruit (pear, quince and an ever so soft lemon-y sour note). Despite the high ABV it comes across quite mellow and pleasant, possibly due to an underlying fresh herbal – vegetal note reminiscent of parsley and peppermint. Lovely!

Palate

Wow! OK, Not at all what I was expecting, but super interesting! It’s like a combination of peat, smoke, wet newspapers, dirty socks and soap, all mixed together. What’s even weirder: I like it! There I said it! Peppery due to the high ABV but even at +60% alcohol nothing overly aggressive and overall it somehow reminds of mezcal on steroids. In a good way. A very good way…

Finish

Not super long, but that dry-soapy-smoky element hangs around for a while.

Final thoughts

There is no doubt in my mind that some will absolutely hate this with a passion. It’s not exactly what you’d call an easy going or accessible whisky and it’s by far the most unusual whisky from High Coast I’ve tasted to date.  Me though, I really love this kind of stuff. It pushes the boundaries of what we think we know and understand, shining a new light on what in theory is the most straightforward and usually also the safest way of developing flavour into an alcoholic spirit: take your new make, pour it into an ex bourbon cask, let it rest for x amount of time and done. And while some of those classic bourbon cask notes are definitely there – the vanilla and citrus, this takes things a step further when it comes to the peat and smoke elements.  Then again, Ardnamurchan and Adlelphi occasionally just do this kind of weirder things to see where the flavour road can take us – remember the infamous Ardnagurkan release they did a  few years ago? This one too is a bit of the wall and perhaps that explains why I like it so much. Shoutout to Greg from Greg's whisky guide for providing me with this unusual but very interesting sample!