Dear friends, followers, and supporters alike! On the 4th of maj 2018 I did my first visit to Swedish Distillery Agitator . If you haven’t already read my article from that visit please do so by clicking here and you will not only get some background info for this article, but also learn a bit about what makes Agitator such a unique whisky distillery. 

During the end of that first visit I filled bourbon casks no.111-116 (barrels, 180L) with the newmake I had helped to produce. The new make was made from peated barley (30ppm) and the mix was 58%...

Dear friends, followers, and supporters alike, to my own joy (and hopefully yours) I'm finally back after a long and great summer break! Today I bring you my tasting notes and thought on an upcoming release from swedish distillery High Coast (formerly known as Box Distillery). 

This time around they are releasing the fourth and concluding chapter in the series titled Quercus (maturation in oak of different origins). For this chapter Mongolica oak sets the character (more specifically oak grown in the northeast of China, near the border to Russia). 

The whisky has been made from 100% unpeated barley. The...

Dear friends, followers, and supporters alike! About a week ago, Peter at Symposion contacted me with the opportunity to review some drams. From the selection available I choose the 2019 edition of Springbank 21 year old. The sample arrived just a few days ago and it felt very exciting since I've never tasted, or reviewed, such an old Springbank!

The recipe/cask composition for this whisky is 45% matured in Port-casks and 55% matured in Rum-casks. (In the sell-sheet I received there is no info to be found regarding type of oak used, nor type of Rum). The whisky has been...

Dear friends, followers, and supporters alike! Today I bring to you my review of the very first 8 year old whisky from the Swedish distillery Smögen ! When working the Gothenburg whiskyfestival in april (for Edrington Sweden), Pär Caldenby, the Distillery Manager/Master Distiller of Smögen Distillery, came by the stand/booth and told me that if I wanted to review this whisky I just had to pop by his stand and sample it, yay! A fantastic offer indeed! 

This whisky is a vatting of four (european; french) 1st-fill Sauternes barriques (225 litre each). The casks were filled in mars 2011 with...

Dear friends, followers, and supporters alike! A few days ago, I received a package from my good friends Patrik and Mikael of " Selected Malts ". The package turned out to contain their upcoming release, and although Selected Malts is a relatively new independent bottler (they released there first bottling roughly a year ago) this is actually their 10:th release so far! So congrats on a first year well done guys!

This time around they are releasing an 8 year old whisky from Benriach distillery. The distillation date was 20100530 and date of bottling was 20181219. The whisky was first...

Dear friends, followers, and supporters alike, once again it's time for me to review yet another bottling from Smögen Distillery in Sweden! Just as with this one , I was very fortunate to pick up a sample during Linköping Whiskyexpo. Thank you Pär! 

So, the whisky up for review today is 7 years old. On the 26th of november 2011, Smögen new make made from heavily peated Optic barley was filled into a 1st-fill bourbon barrel (from Makers Mark) with the assigned cask number 56/2011. As Pär explains here , he discovered that there was risk of leakage (emergency solution...

Dear friends, followers, and supporters alike! When working the Stockholm Beer and Whisky festival last year (for Edrington Sweden) we had the 2018 edition of The Macallan Classic Cut with us, and so I was generously allowed to draw a small sample of it for reviewing! We are just "a little" behind here in Sweden with the release, and I've held on to the sample for five months, but now, finally, this whisky is released at the state monopoly on thursday the 4th of april! Please click here to have a look at the product. 

Now, as you all probably...

Dear friends, followers and supporters alike! On the 27th of februari, the swedish distillery Hven held a press-tasting for their latest release. It was a great feeling to once again receive an invitation to attend the event, but most unfortunately I was not able to attend... However, to my great joy a very generous and beautiful mini-bottle containing 10cl arrived in my postal box in the beginning of the week, and so today I'm very glad to be able to share with you my review of it! 

The latest release is actually the last bottling in their eight-part series drawing...

Dear friends, followers and supporters alike, SamuelWhisky is back with yet another review, and this time it's a whisky from the ever exciting Swedish distillery Smögen ! When working the Linköping Whiskyexpo a little more than two weeks ago, Pär Caldenby (the Distillery Manager/Master Distiller of Smögen Distillery) passed by the Edrington stand, upon which I asked if he had any upcoming products that he wanted me to review. To this he replied: "I brought our two upcoming single casks, so just pop by". Believe me, those words were music to my ears. 

Now, the one of these bottlings that...

Dear friends, followers and supporters alike! Finally it's time for me to review a whiskey from the guys at Teeling again! I have previously reviewed six releases from them (please click here to view them all), but now it's been a while, so it feels really good to have a go at it again! So how did it happen that I got a chance to review this whiskey before it's release?! Well, when working the Linköping Whiskyexpo I had a little chat with Johan Strand, the newly appointed swedish Brand Ambassador for Teeling Whiskey. I simply asked him if there...

Dear friends, followers and supporters alike! Today I had the great pleasure to spend yet another great day at Swedish distillery Agitator Whiskymakare ! If you haven’t had the opportunity to read the article from my first visit, please do now by clicking here , and you will find out what makes Agitator such an interesting and exciting distillery. 

While the activities for my first visit was a bit more decided (getting to know, and helping out with, the production process) the activities of this visit were basically undecided.

Christian, the distillery technician, picked me up at the train station...

Dear friends, followers, and supporters alike! When working at the Borlänge Beer and Whiskyfestival in november last year, Peter Sjögren of swedish independent bottler Svenska Eldvatten (Swedish Firewater) came by to tell me that if I wanted to I was welcome to pop by their stand to see if they had anything that I was interested in reviewing. Well, of course I wanted to and of course they had; I instantly spotted their upcoming release Silent Swede (no.3) Sauternes , and so today I bring you my review of it! 

As can be understood from it's name the whisky has been...

Dear friends, followers, and supporters alike! As you might remember I recently posted an "article" on my visit to the new swedish distillery Agitator Whiskymakare (if you haven't read it yet, please click here in order to get a proper sense of the contents in this post). Now, the production process at Agitator is not the only thing that makes it a unique single malt distillery, It is also what kinds and styles of whisky that they intend to produce that is very unique indeed.

Their first offering to the public is in fact the chance to buy in on...

Dear friends, followers and supporters alike! The day before yesterday I finally received a long awaited package from Swedish Distillery Hven containing their new and highly anticipated release Hvenus  (the package had taken a slight detour via my old hometown Örebro...).  Venus is marketed as a Rye whisky and the following info is provided by the distillery in their product sheet:

"Every batch comprises of 42 casks blended together, aerated and very gently filtered before bottling at 45,6 %vol. No charcoal filtration, no color or sugar added just well- made whisky matured on the best American oak (Quercus Alba) we could...

Dear friends, followers, and supporters alike! On the fourth of maj, when still living in Örebro, I was very, very lucky to pay a visit to the highly interesting and spankingly new Swedish distillery Agitator Whiskymakare located in Arboga (whiskymakare simply means whiskymaker ). I am so happy to have been the first whiskyblogger to visit the distillery by personal invitation from the two distillers/distillery workers Oskar Bruno and Christian Wikström (if you recognise their names it’s probably because they used to produce whisky at now closed Grythyttan Distillery). 

Oskar to the left, SamuelWhisky in the middle, and Christian to...

Dear friends, followers and supporters alike! The past two weekends I had the great pleasure to work the Stockholm Beer & Whiskyfestival, as always, working for Edrington Sweden. It was really great to be back at the festival in Stockholm, a festival that I haven't had the opportunity to make it to since 2012. But now that I live in the capital, it was definitely a must for sure. Anyway, the nice people at Edrington gave me permission to sample some of their upcoming releases, one of them being Highland Park The Light!

Just as The Dark , this whisky...

Dear friends, followers and supporters alike! After a great and long summer break I'm glad to be back and to bring you my thoughts and impressions of a very soon to be released whisky exclusively bottled for Sweden! Last week, I was once again contacted by the people at Symposion who wondered if there was anything from their coming releases that I wanted to review for them, and of course I did! My eyes fell on a single chardonnay cask Longrow (a sort of heavily peated Springbank ), and here are the details:

The whisky is 16 years old, and...

Dear friends, followers and supporters alike! About two months ago, when working this years Beer and Whiskyfestival in Gothenburg (for Edrington), I passed by the stand of Smögen Distillery to have a chat with Pär Caldenby, the Master Distiller and Distillery Manager. I wanted to see if he had anything that he wanted me to review, and indeed he had! 

Pär gladly shared a sample of his coming release: this time around it's a single (oloroso) sherry hogshead (250 litre) made from american oak. The new-make was filled on the 23rd of oktober in 2011 and the whisky was bottled...

Dear friends, supporters and followers alike! A couple of days ago I was very fortunate to once again receive a sample from the people at Bergslagens Distillery ! This time around the label states "Sherry Darling Ferie  aged 6 years". This means that this is the fourth release in the "Sherry Darling"-series. As you all know by now this whisky has not been produced or distilled by Bergslagen Distillery but it was distilled at the (now closed) Grythyttan Distillery. This is in other words an independent bottling by Bergslagens Distillery. 

As you might remember from my previous reviews of whisky...