Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i Whisky Magazine

Exactly a century on from the founding of Japan’s first single malt distillery, Yamazaki, and the birth of its whisky industry, it’s a great time to be a Japanese whisky lover. Not only are we seeing the emergence of a number of new distilleries but one of Japan’s most respected whisky makers has co-founded – along with My Concierge Japan, a booking service for Michelin-starred and fine-dining restaurants in Japan – the Japanese Whisky Membership Community. The brainchild of Seiichi Koshimizu, formerly Suntory’s chief blender, the salon will bring Japanese whisky lovers together in a convivial space. Koshimizu has the vision to reintroduce the category to whisky lovers around the world – with more depth, soul, and spirit than ever before. Koshimizu has teamed up with a remarkable band of…

The first mould-breaking ‘Scotch rye’ of modern times was produced by Arbikie Distillery in Angus, and launched in 2018. Since its arrival, whisky fans have waited impatiently for another Scotch rye whisky to come along. Now, five years later, two have come along at once, courtesy of Bruichladdich and Inch Dairnie. Not that they are allowed to be called ‘Scotch rye whisky’. To comply with current industry regulations, they belong to the category of ‘single grain Scotch whisky’ and must primarily be labelled accordingly. ‘Scotch rye’ was produced until the early 20th century. In his seminal text The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom (1887), Alfred Barnard singles out the Distillers Company Ltd (DCL)-owned Port Dundas distillery in Glasgow for its use of large quantities of rye during the 1880s,…

Arriving at the family-owned Zuidam Distillers in Baarle-Nassau, a small Dutch town sharing a border with Belgium, there are no obvious signs that this is the cradle of European rye whisky. The distillery is located on an industrial estate at the edge of town, flanked by an interior decorating store, a car dealership, and a municipal waste collection facility. There is no signage, let alone a visitor centre. Only the empty sherry casks sitting on the pavement outside, waiting to be filled, give away what is happening inside the modern buildings. And yet, it makes sense that Zuidam is turning heads with its Millstone 100 Rye Whisky (named World’s Best Rye at the 2023 World Whiskies Awards) – 100 per cent rye grain, 100 proof, 100 months old, 100 per…

Evening summer sunlight dances off the Reinilänkoski River. People leap into the cool water from the single-track, white-railed Perttilä bridge just upstream. It’s shortly after midsummer. The river, chilled from distant snowmelt, provides respite from the sauna. Heat, run to the bridge, cool, repeat. It’s an easy summer evening at Kyrö Distillery, located in old dairy buildings next to the river on the edge of the small town of Isokyrö, western Finland. It’s one that lives vibrantly in the memory. Miika Salmi Lipiäinen, co-founder and UK, Ireland and Asia market lead, was there that day, leading the literal charge into the crisp water. At that time, back in 2019, Kyrö had split out its gin and whisky production into dedicated streams, investing in specialist kit to better process its 100…

Rye was introduced to North America by the Dutch. They had long been familiar with this grain as part of their ancestral diet and in distillation since the 1500s. The first American-grown rye was harvested on Manhattan Island, New Amsterdam, in August 1625. While wheat, barley, oat, and rye plots were planted, scarcity prohibited grain distillation. William Henrick was permitted to distil cider into brandy in December 1640 on neighbouring Staten Island. America’s second rye crop was harvested at Lynn in 1633, just outside Salem, Massachusetts. Virginia’s Jamestown colony followed five years later. Whereas wheat and barley were the principal grains for human consumption, English colonists were less familiar with rye, as its agricultural uses had long shifted to livestock feed and spring ground cover. The east coast’s acidic, sandy…

What does a 54-year-old single malt whisky taste like? It is a pleasant question for any whisky lover to ponder but one that is usually reserved for the very wealthiest of collectors and aficionados to answer, and even then only when such rare expressions come on the market. Imagine my pleasure, then, to briefly join such exalted company in March at a London press event to celebrate the launch of Highland Park 54 Years Old, the oldest whisky ever released by the Orcadian distillery. Distilled way back in the ‘flower power’ era of 1968, this whisky was put into four refill butts and six refill hogsheads which were combined into first-fill ex-European sherry casks in 2008 to age for a further 14 years. Only 225 bottles, one for every year…

In 1909, Dr Frank Spragg at the Michigan Agricultural College received a sample of a pedigreed varietal of rye, sent to him from Russia by the father of one of his former students, Joseph Rosen. Spragg cultivated the rye in research lab conditions until there was enough to begin planting commercially in 1912. He named the varietal Rosen after his student, and it quickly became the pride of Michigan agriculture. By 1920, Michigan’s rye output was greater than that of any other state in the US and hundreds of bushels of Rosen rye were being sold to producers in other states for growing. By 1942, Rosen was called out by name in a Seagram’s Grain Manual as being superior for whiskey production. However, the success was short lived; by 1970,…

Almost all Scotch whisky distilleries are named after their locations, with the occasional exception, such as Pulteney in Wick. However, one of Scotland’s newest distilleries has gone down a different route, requiring a bit of back story to decode its name. The distillery in question, located in the popular visitor destination of John O’Groats on the north coast of Caithness, is called 8 Doors. It is now the most northerly on the Scottish mainland and takes its unusual name from the legend of Jan de Groot, a Dutchman who is believed to have operated a ferry service from what is now John O’Groats across the Pentland Firth to the Orkney Islands during the late 15th or early 16th centuries. With echoes of King Arthur and the Round Table, de Groot…

Rye is a popular staple crop across northern Europe, prized for its hardiness and ability to grow in less fertile soils. Its presence across the region has led a number of European distilleries to start producing rye whisky, exploiting their freedom from legislation governing its production (such as that found in the US) to create some unique interpretations of the style. If any one word is synonymous with European rye whisky, it’s ‘Nordic’. Danish whisky producer Stauning makes rye whisky because, according to co-founder Alex Munch, the grain is “a huge part of Danish food culture”. Munch sees Stauning’s rye as a product with simple but solid flavours, representing its location: “The west coast [of Denmark] is a simple place.” This Danish rye whisky is characterised by apple, pear, and…

The Mennonites also played a critical role in developing rye whisky in Canada. Immigrating from Pennsylvania to the Waterloo area of Upper Canada (modernday Ontario) in 1786, families such as the Shenks, Bambergers, and Elbs planted rye and erected mills and distilleries over the next three decades. Samuel Elb established a distillery in 1804, one of around 70 stills registered in Upper Canada. English colonists distilled mainly wheat and barley, whereas the Mennonites brought rye and patent American wood stills, suitable for distillingon-the-grain with rye and corn mashes. After the 1819 Wooden Still Act, a dozen distilleries operated around the Toronto region, shifting from molasses and English mash bills to rye and corn. Edward Shuttleworth’s Humber River Distillery heated smooth river stones in wooden tubs ‘to provide a surface on…

Born into a Portuguese wine-making family, Francisco ‘Chico’ Rosa was visiting his dad’s vineyard from the age of five. He continued to pursue his family’s biggest passion early on in his career, studying wine making at college. While undertaking these studies, Rosa started to brew his own beer at home and developed a fascination with the production process. He honed this craft further on the renowned brewing and distilling course at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University. While studying in Scotland, his eyes were opened to the myriad possibilities of whisky, in particular the flavours and stories behind each creation. After graduating, Rosa was appointed as head of distilling at the Oxford Artisan Distillery, which was founded in 2017 by Tom Nicolson and Tagore Ramoutar and is located in a former Oxford City…