The Internatioal whisky community is indeed not that big and one meets interesting people from all over on social media, and also in real life. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Anki Ulvmåne in real life , for the first time a year and a half ago, at Maltstock 2012, and even a better chance this year at the same event where we shared some drams (yes, some mackmyra too!) and conversation. Anki is indeed a great ambassador of Swedish whisky and a true whisky lover, quite passionate about it, and it shows. So, when i got a message form her a few weeks ago, asking if I was interested in joining an online whisky tasting of Mackmyra she was organizing, I knew i very much wanted to join. as it turned out Anki sent out samples of 4 whiskies to quite a few whisky lovers in the EU we all planned on meeting online for a chat (not twitter this time, but rather a chat in Anki’s site – a nice and refreshing change!). The tasting was blind. we had no idea what was what, although we had a little page with the labels of all whiskies, Anki asked us not to look at until the reveal at the end. We started with #1 (like you usually do eh?). here are my impressions:
Mackmyra Reserves – Elegantara an Jack
Distilled 23/7/20008, bottled at 29/3/2012, cask 08-0425. Bottled at 49,3%
Nose: Vanilla, banana, sweet sugars with an envelope of zingy lemon, candy
Palate: lots of wood, perfume, banana candy, glue, some plastic, grappa sort of notes too even.
Finish: bitter oak, burnt wood, plastic, banana.
Score: 85/100
Mackmyra Reserve – Xrok / Gastrikland / Sherry
Nose: Oh. yea. we’re in peat land. but this one is not all about peat. a lot of wine notes, and quite some fruit too (red fruit). smoke, with bonfire smoke, tar.
Palate: Excellent stuff here. sweet and smoky, BBQ meat in sweet marinade, lovely balance of sweetness and sherry with the smoke. red fruit too.
Finish: smoke,prunes,sweet marinade and bacon
Score: 85/100
Mackmyra Reserve – Xrok / Gastrikland / Bourbon
Nose: More classic peat in bourbon kind of nose. smoke, peat, some banana, vanilla, dirtier but also softer and lighter sort of nose. Wet dog, and what a nice feel to it.
Palate: Oh. the palate feel a lot more peatier than the nose. boom! some new make, chilly, pepper and sweeter notes, also some bitter ash.
Finish: bitter ash, smoke, medicinal.
this is way more balanced than #2 but still, i prefer the former which is more funky, this is more “classic peat”
Score: 83/100
Mackmyra Reserve – Wolfmoon Cask no. 1
Nose: this is again a peated whisky, but more fruity over here. gentle fruit, a certain earthiness, but also sweetness. this is gentle stuff, very balanced.
Palate: wham! this is strong stuff my friends. this is lovely but strong. must be over 60% or something. it explodes with waves of peat, sweetness, spice, chilly. give me more of this. it’s damn fantastic.
Finish: goes on and on and on. mint. peat. pepper. wood smoke.
This is the best dram of the evening in my opinion. Seriously good whisky. I’d love a cask share of this little 30 litre… i really would.
Score: 89/100
Again, I find myself saying: Damn! they do make bloody amazing stuff up there in Sweden. Keep it up. Only downside is that so far the very best Mackmyras were very limited editions and smaller 30 litre casks which are very very hard to get hold of.
Many Thanks to Anki for the initiative, the idea, and for sending (and resending) the samples my way. Anki, you rock. A true great weaver of the whisky fabric.
May there be many more such events. Slainte!