Askeim is our brand name for our whisky based on heritage barley strains – i.e. older strains of barley – such as the well known Golden Promise from the 1960’s and 1970’s, its forerunner Maris Otter from the 1960’s, earlier still Plumage Archer from the early 20th Century and the venerable Chevallier from the 19th Century. Using these older strains of barley for the malt means sacrificing some, or a lot, of alcohol yield per tonne of malt, but also getting in part other flavours and aromas, as well as a richness and even a physical, almost viscuous feeling from the spirit based on these heritage strains. Get less, but packed with malty flavours, like.
At Smögen, we do like big flavours. Especially big, malty flavours, from freshly baked baguette, through sponge cake to biscuity notes. What’s not to like? And in order to enhance the malty flavours even more, while Smögen is based on heavily peated malt, the heritage barleys malted for Askeim are merely lightly peated or wholly unpeated. We’ve always considered the peat smoke notes to be complementary to the malty base notes for Smögen – but with Askeim, this balance is tilted very decidedly towards the big, malty, generous flavours.
The intention with Askeim is to offer a big, bold and clearly Old School character in the whisky, where the spirit characters and thus by extension the barley characters are in the lead. If there is peat smoke, it is far less overt than in Smögen. This clear difference in character is the reason for our Askeim spirit and whisky having its own distinct brand name. We do not want the enthusiast to confuse the main character with that of Smögen, as the whiskies are clearly quite different, although both are big and very flavoursome by design and nature. Thus, its own name, Askeim.
Inspiration for the style represented by Askeim was drawn from the old Clynelish whisky – today known as Brora – from the Scottish Northern Highlands, where until it halted production in the late 1960’s a big bodied, robust and yet most well balanced and elegant whisky was produced. That was the inspiration. And it remains the aspiration. Obviously, at that point in time, older barley strains would have been used, perhaps Maris Otter or Golden Promise during the last years in the 1960’s (the distillery reopened in 1969, producing a legendary peated whisky that was also very good indeed, but a different style).
Askeim is produced in the distillery with the very same equipment as Smögen. But as the flavours in the mash will differ, so will the running of the stills and our worm tub condensers differ. The main difference is in the running of the spirit still, with the heart of the run being run at a slightly slower pace and with different cut points, with the first cut being after a shorter foreshots run than for Smögen and the second cut being taken earlier than Smögen would, resulting in a typically stronger new make spirit than Smögen’s, but still not at all a lighter bodied one. The spirit is then filled largely into either – and mainly – ex Bourbon barrels, or ex Sherry hogsheads, with the odd less common cask type employed as well.
Expect Askeim to be rich, full bodied and packed with malty characters. It is a whisky worth savouring and enjoying. We think it is simply a great representation of a character of yesteryear. And we are rather convinced that any whisky enthusiast will learn to appreciate it as well – so welcome to another aspect of what our whisky can be!