Europe Archives - Page 3 of 3 - More drams, less drama

Mackmyra Grönt Te Review

10th March 202016th March 2020Coldorak

Nowadays, distilleries love to play around, more than ever, with casks used to mature their whisky. In some countries, for example Scotland, if distilleries go “too far”, the regulatory bodies give a big frown. And “too far” is more “it’s not on the allowed types of casks list hence it’s forbidden” than “what you did gave a crappy whisky because your cask was spent or was virgin oak ruining a good but fragile spirit”. In some other countries, let’s say Sweden, distilleries can experiment and do as they want. Moreover, Mackmyra is a Swedish distillery that loves to experiment. Their latest experiment is a whisky called Grönt Te, but before reviewing it, let’s give a quick presentation of Mackmyra.

Penderyn Tweet Tasting

5th March 20205th March 2020Coldorak

On Saint David’s day (the 1st of March for those who don’t know all the saints by heart, myself included), I participated to a Penderyn Tweet Tasting organized by the unmissable Steve Rush. Saint David was a Welsh bishop of Mynyw (now St Davids) during the 6th century. Saint David is the patron saint of Wales. Fast forward to the end of the 20th century. A group of friends while having a dram, decided to start a distillery, and in 1998, The Welsh Whisky Company was born. Two years later, it started distilling, and this was the first time a Welsh distillery did this in more than a hundred years. Finally, in 2004 on Saint David’s day, Penderyn Whisky was launched in the presence of HRH Prince Charles. Penderyn distillery is located in the foothills of the Brecon Beacons National Park in South Wales.

Quick review: Cotswolds 3yo batch 1 TBWC

18th December 201918th December 2019Coldorak

Behind the seventeenth window of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s 2019 Advent Calendar we will be reviewing each day until the 24th of December was hidden a Cotswolds 3yo batch 1, bottled at 50.4% abv by that Boutique-y Whisky Company. Cotswolds is a very young English distillery as it has been founded in 2014 and produces whisky, gin and other spirits. They have three small stills: a wash still (2400 litres) and a spirit still (1600 litres) for the whisky and a Holstein still (500 litres) to distil gin and other spirits. This Boutique-y release had an outturn of 1783 bottles and can still be found on Master of Malt for £58.95.

SMWS – A small cigar can change the world

18th November 201921st July 2020Ainulindale

Lineup of the tasting — What a mighty lineup

Early september, I discovered there was events where you could taste SMWS whiskies as well as cigars – and boy what that an excellent discovery.
This time around, the French ambassadors reached out to me and asked me whether I would be interested in an “exclusive” session where we would taste a whisky selected just for France – SMWS 7.217 – Joie de vivre. This session would again be at Gentleman 1919, which I’m starting to love more and more.

Obviously, I accepted – and I can only thank them for that as I missed the Whisky Live due to friends having the bad idea of having their wedding that week-end. This was then the occasion for me to forget about the sheer pain it caused and soothe my broken heart by downing some drams.

Armorik Double Maturation review

6th September 20196th September 2019Coldorak

After the tour I did of the Warenghem Distillery, we went to the tasting room upstairs in the visitor centre, to taste two drams: the Armorik Sherry Cask first, then the Armorik Double Maturation reviewed here.

Armorik Sherry Cask review

6th September 20198th September 2019Coldorak

After the tour I did of the Warenghem Distillery, we went to the tasting room upstairs in the visitor centre, to taste two drams: the Armorik Sherry Cask reviewed here, and the Armorik Double Maturation.

Bimber Distillery Tweet Tasting

31st August 20196th September 2019Coldorak

Bimber Distillery is a quite recent distillery operating from London, England. Founded in 2015, they buy their two-row malted barley (Concerto and Laureate) from a single farm near Hampshire and have it malted by Warminster Maltings. Then, they distill their spirit with two direct-fire small copper pot-stills made by a Spanish company, Hoga: a 1000 litre wash still, called Doris, and a 600 litre spirit still called Astraeus. Distillation of whisky began in May 2016, and the first casks filled on the 26th of May, 2015 have now reached 3 years of age. Quite a journey since the distilling of moonshine in Poland by the grandfather of the master-distiller of Bimber Distillery, Darius Plazewski. And by the way, the translation for “moonshine” in Polish is… “Bimber”.