Smögen is a truly micro-sized malt whisky distillery, producing the new make spirit in a volume of about merely 115 litres per production day – at the typical spirit safe strength of 71% alcohol by volume. All of the new make will be matured on site and be bottled as malt whisky only, with exceptional attention to every part of the detailed process.
The process being exactly what, I hear you think (loudly)?
We do buy in malted barley from dedicated maltsters, either in Scotland or Sweden. As we produce a peated (smoky) malt whisky, the malt we do buy in will be made from barley that has first been steeped in order to be able to start germinating, then laid out on malting floors to germinate and – ultimately – be dried in a kiln which is burning peat to generate both heat and, crucially for character, peat smoke. The peat smoke will stick to the drying husk of the malted barley and will subsequently generate the smoky aroma and taste in any smoky whisky. The quality of the barley will be very important in order to make a good new make and the strain of barley can have an appreciable impact on what style of character the raw material will impart to the spirit. The same goes for the manner of malting, whether traditional floor malting or drum malting, and most certainly for the location and depth of the peat bog that supplied the dried peat.
The malt is received in 25 kg bags, nine of which make up one batch, or ”mash”, once we’ve crushed the malt into a coarse grist (in order to allow water to dissolve the soluble maltose sugars and starch inside the malted barley corn). Thus, 225 kg of grist goes into our manually operated mash tun, essentially a round stainless steel tub that has a false bottom just above the actual base, in order to catch all the husks and non-soluble parts of the malt/grist. Two hot waters are added, first 700 litres which sits with the grist for about half an hour before some 300 litres of the sugary worts are drawn off into one of our three washbacks, after being cooled down to around 20˚ C. Drawing off said volume takes around one hour, after which the second water of 350 litres is added, the grist bed is re-turned in order to even out the porridge-looking maltbed and allow for good dissolution of all sugars into the worts. After a total flowing time of four to five hours, the washback will have taken on 900 litres of sugary worts.
In order to ferment the worts into an alcoholic wash, we add a distiller’s yeast and let the ferment go on for typically six to seven days. This very prolonged fermentation will allow for the formation of precursors to fruity esters, that will form during maturation. The very rich malty notes from the malted barley do go very well with the kind of pronounced fruity aromas and flavours that we can get by doing very long ferments.
Once the wash is emptied into the 900 litre sized wash still, it will hold 8-8,5% alcohol. The two stills are both heated by direct heating electrically fed heating rods. The wash still is heated for two hours in order to come to the boil at around 93˚ C and the low wines, the first distillate, is then run off for around five and a half hours, dropping in strength from around 55% alcohol to below 2% alcohol. Around 300 litres of low wines at a strength of 25% alcohol will be the result of this first distillation.
Low wines are then fed into the spirit still the next morning. As the volume has been concentrated, the spirit still is smaller and can take up to 640 litres, though it is normally charged with 560 litres. The charge will consist of 330 litres of low wines and then 230 litres of recycled feints, being the first and third fractions from the previous spirit still run. The charge strength is typically 29-30% alcohol.
Still Run
In difference to the wash still run, the spirit still run is separated into three distinctly different fractions – foreshots, spirit (or heart) and tails. The very strong and fiery foreshots and the weaker and heavier tails both go into the feints receiver, from where they will then be re-charged back into the still with the subsequent spirit run. The first and second cut point between these three fractions are taken at around 75 and 62% alcohol, respectively, with the heart of the run taking around two hours and producing some 115 litres of new make spirit at around 71% alcohol.
When a suitable volume of new make is gathered in the spirit receiver, one or more oak casks is rolled into the distillery room and be filled with the new make. Normally, the spirit is cut down in strength to just over 60% alcohol, by simply adding water. When filled, the casks are rolled into the warehouses on site and racked into tall stacks, to be left to rest and mature for a number of years. The legal minimum is three years in order to be able to call the spirit whisky, but almost all whisky is matured for two or more times this length of time.
Casks used by Smögen will be generally first fill casks that have not been used for maturing malt whisky before, with a balance of some virgin oak casks that have never been used for anything before. These casks are both quite active and they will be refilled by us for one or two times. This ensures that the oak in the casks we use will remain active and fresh, meaning a more active and high quality maturation and whisky. Just as one cannot make good whisky from poor or indifferent new make spirit, it is impossible to make good whisky from poor, tainted or just spent casks – by making a very characterful new make spirit of high quality and place that into prime quality, active casks, Smögen will quickly mature into a potent, flavoursome and decidedly mature malt whisky.
The types of casks used will be from both European oak (Quercus Robur and Quercus Petraea) and American white oak (Quercus Alba) and may be virgin oak in some cases and otherwise second hand casks that have previously been used to mature Bourbon whiskey, Sherry, Sauternes, Madeira, Cognac or Rum. Sizes will vary from a few octave casks of only 50 litres volume, through quarters, barrels, barriques, hogsheads, puncheons, butts and all the way up to one of our three giant gorda casks of 600 litres volume. Smaller sized casks mature the whisky faster and in a slightly different manner to larger casks.
Bottling is done on site and at high strength, typically at full cask strength of around 60% alcohol. Particularly well balanced and characterful single casks will be bottled as they are, on their own, but the larger volumes will be used for batched bottlings, where balance and complexity will be built up by using a small number of casks to complement each other.
Smögen is very malty and peaty as the base notes, with fruity overtones from the spirit and cask characters in addition but depending on what type of cask has been used during maturation. Common cask characters will be shaved or polished oak, vanilla, cedar, coffee, nutmeg, clove, heavier fruits such as apricot, ground black pepper, nutty and almondy notes, citrus notes and winey notes especially if the cask had been used for maturing a sweet wine.
