Dear friends and followers alike! Once again I was fortunate enough to receive a package from the people at Bergslagens Distillery . This time the label states: "Sherry Darling Aged 5 years sherry casks lightly peated". This is the second release in a series of three (please feel free to read my thoughts on the first release in the series here ). 

Just as I wrote in the post of the first release in this series, and as you all know by now, this whisky has not been produced or distilled by Bergslagen Distillery but it was distilled at the (now...

Dear friends and followers alike, a couple of weeks ago I received a package of different samples from the nice people of Symposion ! The sample that I will share my notes on with you all is Springbank "Local Barley". But first some info on Springbank Distillery . From the handout/info I received I read:

"There are a few Scottish distilleries that still malt their own barley but Springbank is the only distillery which malts 100% of its own barley, using the traditional floor maltings. The whole production process: malting, milling, mashing, fermentation, distillation, maturation and bottling, happens on the...

Dear friends and followers! Today I received a sample from the nice and sharing people at Box Distillery so once again it is time for me to share my thoughts on yet another swedish whisky! The sample contains the concluding and third part in their series entitled 2nd Step Collection. The information I have received states that the whisky has been predominantly matured in first fill bourbon casks, in fact 76% of the whisky has been matured in first fill bourbon casks. 19% has been matured in american virgin oak and finally 5% in virgin hungarian oak. The peating level...

Dear friends and followers! To my immense joy, I received a package last friday which turned out to contain a sample from Bergslagens Distillery ! The label declares "Sherry Darling Aged 5 years, sherry casks". This is the first release in a series of three (the other two being "Sherry Darling lightly Peated" and "Sherry Darling Peated").

The pressrelease that I received states that this first release has been produced by blending circa/roughly ten 50 litre sherry casks together. There is no mention either of type of sherry (but I'm guessing Oloroso) or of what kind of oak (european or...

Dear friends and followers! About one and a half week ago, I spent my time working for Edrington at the Linköping Whiskyexpo which was great fun as usual. What was also very fun was that I passed by the stand of swedish west coast distillery Smögen to have a quick chat with the distillery manager/master distiller Pär Caldenby. So what was the purpose with the quick chat? Well, it was of course to see if Pär had anything special up his sleeve for me to review! So, did he? Oh yes indeed, I was very lucky to collect a sample...

Friends and followers! Last weekend I had the great pleasure to once again work the Linköping Whiskyexpo for Edrington. This means taking care of Highland Park (among many other great whiskies in the Edrington portfolio). The first thing I noticed when I arrived to the festival was that we had Highland Park FIRE in the stand! Now, since FIRE has not yet been launched and released here in Sweden, working at the festival was a great opportunity for me to try it before the release. And of course I grasped that opportunity, and I'm very thankful that the nice people...

Dear friends and followers! When working at the Borlänge Beer and Whiskyfestival in november last year, I passed by the stand of swedish indendent bottlers Svenska Eldvatten (Swedish Firewater) to have a chat with Peter and Tommy. Of course I was very keen on finding out if there was any new release coming up shortly that they wanted me to review. And indeed they did have something for me, something very special; the first release in their new series called Sherry Cask Collection. All bottlings in the series will be from different single sherry casks, and of course, always bottled...

Dear friends and followers! In the beginning of november, Glenfiddich contacted me with info about a coming release, namely their "IPA Experiment". This whisky is the first one in their new "experimental series". The whisky (no age declared) has been finished in american oak barrels that previously held a Speyside IPA created especially for this end, that is, to give flavours to the casks. The IPA has been in the casks for 4 weeks and the whisky has in turn had a 12 week finish in the casks. 

For more info on the process and on this first whisky in...

Dear friends and followers! Yesterday I was very lucky to receive a package containing something very exciting, a sample of the first ”core range”/signature Maltwhisky from the swedish distillery Box ! So far, they have focused on releasing various (very high quality) limited editions. Since the distillery is quite young indeed, it is understandable that these limited editions have not been very big releases in terms of number of bottles. 

However, when I visited Box Distillery about 1,5 years ago ( read all about it here ), they mentioned that they soon will release a core range whisky. And...

Dear friends and followers, today, to my big surprise, I received a mystery package from a mystery sender! I was indescribably happy when I discovered that the package contained the two coming releases of Single Cask Highland Park , for Sweden only! It also contained a nice little info-card. When I recently had the great honor and pleasure to visit Highland Park distillery (read all about it here ) I was told about these two single casks and that they would soon be released, so as you all can understand it is a great satisfaction to finally be able to...

Dear friends and followers!

Before the summer, I was very lucky to receive a small package from the very nice people at Edrington here in Sweden. I opened it and to my great joy and excitement the package seemed to contain a leather-bound book of some sort! 

I opened the book and this is what first met my eyes 

I turned the first page and this is what I found

Yes! A miniature sample of the new Laphroaig Lore

Now, as you all might understand, the word “Lore” kind of draws on something like folk-lore. And in this case the...

Friends and followers! As some of you might have understood from a post on my FB-page  I recently experienced a fantastic journey to the Orkney Islands. More precisely the destination was the little town of Kirkwall (sort of the capitol of the Orkney Islands) and even more precisely: The Highland Park Distillery ! But what was the background for this trip? How did it come about? Well, as you all know I’ve been working the whiskyfestivals and fairs for Edrington since 2012, mostly taking care of my favourite brands Connemara and Laphroaig. 

During the last night of this years festival...

Friends and followers! Two months ago (the 10th of mars) I was very fortunate and lucky to attend the release event of Highland Park ICE at the Edrington head quarters in Stockholm, Sweden! I think you can all imagine that I was pretty excited to be one of the first people in Sweden, in the good company of other bloggers, whiskywriters, connoisseurs and guests, to try a new whisky from Highland Park Distillery !

When we entered the tasting room a beautifully decorated table met our eyes. 

Especially cool was, standing at the back of the room, the visually attracting...

Friends and followers! Once again I am very happy to be able to bring you my impressions of a coming release from swedish independent bottler "Svenska Eldvatten" (Swedish Firewater) . This time it's the third release in their anniversary-series with which they are celebrating their first five years! As I've shared with you before my dear friends and followers, every release in the series has a very special and exclusive label showing a motif painted by the well-known artist/painter and whisky-aficionado alike, Petri Jäsperi . 

This third release was distilled at Bruichladdich Distillery in...

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...

Friends and Followers! During the Linköping Whisky Expo I was very lucky to retrieve a sample of the coming release from the Swedish west coast distillery Smögen ! The festival was in februari and I have had the sample for quite some time (trying to balance between resisting to taste it and to publish my review in time for the release), so as you can all understand I am today very eager to taste the whisky! As you know by now, at Smögen they only produce peated whisky, and in this release they have used 40ppm malt. 

Being casked 100827...

Friends and followers! A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be contacted by the nice people at the PR-firm Edelman Deportivo, working for the swedish drinks-distributor Nigab. They wanted to know if I would like to review their coming release of a whisky called Ailsa Bay, of course I wanted to, and so they sent me a sample, so big thanks for that!

Ailsa Bay was founded in 2007 and is produced at the distillery with the same name. It’s situated in the Lowlands, right beside the grain distillery Girvan. Both distilleries are owned by drinks giant...

Friends and followers! As promised in my last post , I now bring you a tasting note of the second bottling in the anniversary-series celebrating the first five years of Svenska Eldvatten (”Swedish Firewater”) as independent bottlers! 

Every release in the series (as you can see from the picture to the left) has a very special and exclusive label showing a motif painted by the well-known artist/painter and whisky-afficionado Petri Jäsperi

This particular whisky was distilled at Bruichladdich Distillery in november 2004. It was put into barrel no.1407, a fresh Ex-Bourbon Barrel (that is to...

Friends and followers! When working at the Örebro Beer & Whiskyfestival this november, I stopped by Peter and Tommy of the swedish independent bottler Svenska Eldvatten (”Swedish Firewater”) to see if they had any interesting news, and of course they did! Enthusiastically they shared info on their coming anniversary-series for this year, consisting of a number of bottlings celebrating their first five years as independent bottlers! 

Every release in the series (as you can see from the picture to the left) has a very special and exclusive label showing a motif painted by the well-known...