Tasting Smögen Primör (Swedish whisky)

We’ll kick-start this week with some world whisky, this time from Sweden. Sweden is becoming quite the whisky powerhouse with Mackmyra, Box, Smogen and more distilleries releasing very good and interesting whiskies. Mackmyra is well known and has been around the longest I guess, but this small and young distillery is very very interesting .

Smögen Whisky AB was founded in the summer of 2009, with the aim of establishing a distillery for small scale production of a real malt whiskey from the Bohuslän west coast, with great character and maritime influences. Production and currently also the entire stocks located in the courtyard Ståleröd, just southwest of Hunnebostrand, just under a mil north of Smögenön, in Sotenäs municipality. Activities include the production of whisky as well as visit-related services and certain sales of products related to whiskey. The whiskey produced will be powerful, smoky and with great character. The focus is on high quality in small batches, with full manual manufacturing and direct supervision.

The distillery was set up by Pär Caldenby, who’s a lawyer by trade, set up the distillery after Being passionate about whisky and visiting Scotland quite a few times.

This whisky is their first, and was released in a small batch of 2,188 bottles (50 cl) and were vatted from 8 European oak barrels, and one wine barrique previously used to age Bordeaux wine. It’s 3 years old (and a few days).

Smögen Primör , 63.7% abv , 1250 SEK

Nose: Very nice nose that’s for sure. Sweet barley. Cereals , quite peaty too. Very good. It does feel young but that’s not a bad thing here. It doesn’t feel rough.  Some traces of new make and fruit.  Peat is quite earthy. Salty sweet peanut butter.

Palate: Oh man. Loads of peat. Loads! Very peppery and spicy. Chilly. Earth. Mint. Lots of soot too. Some salty edge to it as well,and not as fruity and sweet as the nose suggests but some of that too. Some water adds more spicy chilly. And nuts. It’s a good idea to add water, this is a beast in iterms of ABV, and a bit of water tames it down perfectly.

Finish: Long peaty & earthy finish. Some distant sweetness and bits of chilly.

A brilliant young whisky. I was blown away by how lovely it felt. Was not expecting that from a 3 year old. the peat is also brilliantly integrated and it feels really good on the palate and the nose. Most impressive. In a couple of years this whisky is going to be exceptional, mark my words, and look for it if you can. Pär knows his stuff.

a few dozen bottles are heading towards the UK . Expect prices around the 165 quid mark for 0,5 liter…

Score: 85/100

official sample provided by Smogen whisky