The Scottish, the Danish and the American - Blog post by Steffen Lautrup

THE NOSE: It's described as lightly peated, but to my nose it's more of a dominant force. I give it some time in the glass and the dominant peat settles down. Here I sense the fruit from the red wine cask, which together with the peat reminds me of fresh smoked hamburgers glazed with honey. The longer I leave it in the glass, the more balanced it becomes, and more and more ripe apples and pears can be smelled.

TASTE: First, a flood of sweetness hits, with fresh berries and a hint of mint. However, this is only for a short while before the oily yellow fruits take over. A drop of water and the mint is tamed. Then only a lovely taste of sweetness that spreads throughout the mouth. However, a hint of juniper also emerges.

FINISH: It has a long finish. First comes the fresh mint which lingers briefly before the sweetness of fresh apples and pears takes over again

.FINAL

COMMENT: This is a whisky I could easily enjoy alone in front of the fireplace on a cold winter day, but also one I would offer to my guests. It is a nice round whisky that can be used for any occasion. It suits my taste and is one I would keep on the shelf at all times.

Personal rating = 80/100

Let's put down the bagpipes and put some pants back on. For now, we're off to Denmark. We take a 2 km east of the town of Oure, which is located on southern Funen. The distillery is a micro-distillery that tries as far as possible to follow the Scottish tradition, i.e. double distillation. For this purpose, specially built casks are used that have previously held Oloroso or Pedro Ximenez sherry, port or bourbon. The casks are of the smaller variety (50-60L), because, as they say, "In addition to a rapid maturation process, it also provides a sweet and fruity experience that defines our version of single malt." The whisky in question is MOSGAARD - PEAT & PORT. This single cask was carefully selected by whisky.dk themselves when they visited Jes Mosgaard. Here they selected a 64 liter quater cask built from port wine staves. The style is Mosgaard peated and has first been stored in a used bourbon barrel. It comes in with an abv of 58.2%, which gives a good kick to the flavor experience.

THE

NOSE: The first thing I detect is a sweetness that camouflages itself in the form of figs. As time passes and my patience is tested, fruits emerge that go hand in hand with the port cask. Finally, I sense a hint of caramel.

TASTE: The first thing that hits the tongue is not necessarily the lovely smoke, but rather the same sweetness that was found in the aroma. However, there is a hint of lemon with sweetness that clearly compliments the good side of the flavor. A little more water and the lemon is subdued, with dark fresh fruit emerging instead.

FINISH: It rounds off with a medium-long

finish.

Here the smoke lingers and is one of the ingredients that comes into play. Likewise, strong spices come into play.

FINAL COMMENT: A fantastic whisky I will hold close to my body. This is by far my favorite of the three, but I'm also known to have a soft spot for port casks, so the addition of smoke is just a double win. On special occasions, or with guests I know like a good whisky, I will bring this into play. Otherwise, if I may, I'll be a little selfish and keep it to myself.

Personal rating = 90/100

After a bit of homely and good Danish coziness, we take the longest flight and land in the state of Vermont, America. Here we are going to a 150-year-old farm, albeit renovated, which has pigs, sheep, goats, bees and horses. In addition, over 200 hectares of land is used to produce the large amount of rye used in their whiskies. They also pride themselves on producing their own casks from oak wood that also grows on the farm. The owner (Raj Bhakta) of Whistlepig bought the farm in 2007, launched the company in 2010 and the first product came in 2015, in the form of their 10-year Rye. I won't jump further into the story as Steven Kramme has already written a great post. You can find that post here: https://blog.whisky.dk

/

whistlepig-15-year-straight-rye-whiskey/The whiskey

we're going to dive into is WHISTLEPIG - STRAIGHT RYE WHISKEY. This one comes in at 46% abv. It is made from 100% Rye, and in addition to this, it is aged for 15 years.

The

nose:

The

first thing that jumps out is oak, and there is a lot of it

.

After it is allowed to stand a little, some complexity can be sensed, here it is difficult to hit the exact fruit, I want to say some lemon and fresh cherries? The longer you spend on it, the more you get out of it.

Lastly,

I would say there is a little bit of leather to be found along with the oak.

THE

TASTE: A calm and soft start to a sweet flavor spreads in the mouth. The first is a rain of vanilla, lemon peel and burnt oak. Slowly this changes at the back of the mouth to a creamier vanilla and dark chocolate.

In

addition to these, I also find a consistent flavor of various floral spices.

FINISH

: It ends with a medium long finish, with dry oak dominating, though the consistent flavor of floral spices is still faintly

present.FINAL

COMMENT: It's rare that I taste a 100% Rye whisky, and they're not exactly the ones I go for when I'm out shopping. But this one is a little different, because of its incredible history and its flavor, it's an excellent whiskey. However, for me, we are not the best match for each other.

Personal rating = 65/100

Inconclusion: This was our little journey together. I hope you enjoyed it and got a taste for trying if not all three, then at least one. I want to remind you that this is a personal rating and you may not find exactly the same as I have found. If you are interested in buying any of the bottles, you can find the link to each of them at the bottom of the page

,

so there is nothing more to say than: Sláinte

Whisky.dk products in this post

Raasay R-02 2021 Single Island Malt Whisky

Buy

Mosgaard Danish Organic Single Malt Whisky

Buy

WhistlePig 15 year Straight Rye Whiskey

Buy