A pair of Smögen

Smögen 6 yo ‘100 proof’ Batch 1 (57.1%, OB, Sweden, sherry quarter cask, 2020)
Color: pale amber. Nostril: extraordinarily leafy and resinous with a complete charcuterie of cured and smoked darkish meats. Additionally darkish grained breads, smoked German beers, venison baked in cocoa and salt (attempt it, wonderful!), additionally some completely sharp and salty Dutch liquorice. Pow! With water: there’s a particular and moderately ‘Swedish’ fishiness now, the overt suggestion that each pickling and burying have occurred sooner or later alongside the way in which. Additionally smoked black pepper and a few chunky BBQ smoke. Mouth: completely leathery, sharp and salty sherry that mixes nuttiness, black pepper, sport meats, wooden spices, earthy tones and smoked darkish teas. Peat and fashionable sherry working in uncommon concord I feel. With water: a sort of candied peaty be aware, candy smoke, tar extract, smoked olive oil, extra smoked salami, black espresso and hessian. End: lengthy, peppery, meaty, tarry and richly smoky. Feedback: if I had been left in command of Smögen, I’d fill each drop of latest make into plain oak barrels and hogsheads. This terrific wee bottling is strictly why I shouldn’t be left in command of Smögen.
SGP: 476 – 90 factors.

Smögen 8 yo 2011/2020 (62.7%, Scotch Malt Whisky Society, #145.1 ‘A candy kiss from a smoking mermaid’, 1st fill barrel, 240 bottles)
One in all my fellow SMWS panel chairs clearly has extra expertise with mermaids than I do. However was she on fireplace, in a wooden smoker, sparking of a big joint – we demand solutions! Color: straw. Nostril: pure, hyper sharp and barely closed as much as start. We’re in very slender Caol Ila territory I really feel. Pure seawater, pickling brine, smoked olive oil and salt-cured sardines. Impressions of moist seaweed and seaside pebbles come out too. It is undeniably impeccable, however retains its playing cards near its chest. With water: a pure and pristine smokiness, one which takes in peat and wooden smoke and possesses an nearly crystalline, brittle high quality. I additionally discover pink sea salt, ink and slightly carbolic acidity. Mouth: fairly cruel upon arrival. A coiled spring of seawater, stone-honed peat smoke, mercurochrome, lemon juice, oyster water and sandalwood ashes. It is monolithic however there additionally many delicate suggestive issues coming out like chalkiness, citrus piths, smoked olive oil; then ultimately we get to thicker stuff like camphor, deeper phenolics, tar coal cleaning soap and inexperienced peppercorns in brine. There may be a variety of element and requires shut consideration. With water: fairly immense now with water. Turns into broader, extra open, the feel is fatter and thicker in each route. An actual mouth-filling carpet of smoke, tar, pebbles, salt, minerals and petrol. End: extraordinarily lengthy, sharply smoky, inexperienced and black olives, flippantly fermentary with hay, rollmop herring, wooden ashes, pickling brine and salted liquorice. The complexity simply appears to collect tempo and momentum over time. Feedback: It is in all probability the model of Smögen I most get pleasure from, and as such I am having a wee inside battle concerning the rating, however I suppose it is also a demanding model of whisky that you must actually be within the temper for. We’re actually in smoked barley eau de vie territories right here – and brilliantly so in case you ask me.
SPG: 377 – 90 factors.