Nordic Whisky

The Nordics (Finland, Sweden Denmark, Norway, Færoes and Iceland), while absurd to try and categorise as one flavour-led region, there is a sense of not a singular identifiable style, but more of a shared mindset within which are a multiplicity of variations. Making whiskies which speak of their cultures and location. A fertile seed bed from which to draw.

This understanding of conditions and how they can impact on flavour is key to trying to get an understanding of what is happening in the Nordic whisky world. There are distilleries here which exist on the marginal.

Sweden’s High Coast on the shores of the Baltic can have winter temperatures as low as -30˚C. In summer, it can reach 40˚C. It is an understanding of those extremes have a direct influence on maturation, while this then extends further into a forensic understanding of the relationship between temperature in distilling and condensing and its impact on flavour.

Myken is an island 2km long by 400m wide sitting 32km off the Norwegian coast in the Arctic Circle. As if the extremes of the location aren’t sufficient, there is no fresh water, so the distillery relies on a desalination plant.  Is this a clue to its minerality? Its Ocean Heart mixes light malt, cut flowers, with a hint of ambergris, jasmine and lemon. Its 10th anniversary bottling was crystalline and precise with fresh barley, yellow fruits, apricot, sea thrift and a powdery back note. Bracing, but with a thick, vinous, physicality, the marine elements adding balance and a clean spine.

A similar salinity runs through Feddie, another Norwegian island distillery whose process water is surface run. In summer it’s warm, upping a grassy notes, while autumn and winter storms mean that it’s salty. While it helps with fermentation it corrodes the equipment. That said, without it would Feddie be as aromatically bright - mixing pear blossom, cut flowers, white bread and a touch of lime? Would the palate’s silken texture be as well; balanced, with rock pool brininess? Both island whiskies speak of where they are from.

Iceland’s natural internal heating system allows Floki to run off geothermal-heated water, but it is the decision to only use locally-grown barley which is its most tangible link to place. Iceland’s marginal climate means that planting and harvesting dates change every year, resulting in vintage variation. Global warming has meant that barley can be grown here and the distillery uses 6-row feed barley (IS-Kria and Philipa) varieties whose low starch and high protein gives earthiness, grassy notes and an oily texture.

Norway’s Aurora (maker of Bivrost whisky) is located on a repurposed NATO base on Lyngen Fjord, 94km east of Tromsø. The world’s most northerly distillery is also drawing from the most northerly barley crop - in this case 6-row Héder, Braga, bere, and a Heder x malting barley cross fermented, naturally, with a local Kveik yeast. The fed barley adds its nutty/bready notes with the farmhouse yeast’s ability to enhance sweet tropical fruits. As intense as an Arctic summer.

All of these use organic grain, something they share with Denmark’s Thy distillery. Here, at this farm distillery on Jutland's western coast, the examination of conditions is focused on what can grow. This means heritage Danish barleys sourced from the Nordic Gene Bank, along with rye, and spelt. Thy’s Kornmod is a melange of canvas, tinned pineapple, hay orchard fruits and cut flowers. Its Spelt-Rye adds a herbal note to the grassiness with the spelt upping the oily textural quality. It is Danish in the same way as Feddie, Myken and Bivrost are Norwegian. Scotland might have provided a template, but the application is that of distillers in tune with their conditions.

Although it might seem initially that an opposite dynamic is at work at Sweden’s Agitator which, like Aurora, is inside a military base - though this one is active - there is a Scandic approach at work in its approach. Here, an engineering gene is to the fore - wet milling, long ferments, different yeasts and two sets of stills - one maximising reflux, the other giving weight - all run under vacuum. Its single malt is precise and crisp with white fruits/florals and yellow plum. Argument Lönnsirapsfatt shows the weightier side, mixing red berries (cherries especially), cedar and camphor. A similar technological mindset is at work in the Copenhagen distillery whose distillation system allows specific flavours to be isolated and extracted.

A middle ground can be found at Denmark’s Stauning whose distillery is a triumph of novel in-house engineering solutions - an automated malting machine, a mashing set up capable of handling rye as well as direct-fired stills and a complex heat recovery system. The use of locally-grown rye gives strong links with place - as does the use of local peat (and heather, pine and seaweed) for smoking.

The fact that Stauning’s founders first made whisky in the town’s old butchery introduces another thread to the Nordic knit. That first rye was steeped in a stainless steel tank, malted on the tiled floor of the cold store, kilned in a bacon smoker, milled in a mincing machine, and fermented in a former brining tank.

The food link is strong across the region. Is there any surprise that the rise in distilling came at the same time as the rise of the New Nordic food movement which turned away from a French template and began to examine local ingredients and techniques? The Fær Isles distillery, for example, ages its whisky in opnahjallur, the traditional wooden Færoese food-curing house which has gaps in its walls to allow the salt-laden wind to blow through.

Food was the main driver behind Finland’s Kyrö decision to specialise in rye. The logic was a new whisky should appeal to a national palate which has been brought up on rye bread. The distillery’s Malted Rye has notes of pumpernickel, caraway, flamed citrus oils and red fruits with a taste of buttered rye toast, pine and apricot. Whisky as part of an intangible cultural asset.

Rather than being reliant on peat (or imported peated barley), traditional ways of smoking are also being utilised. Denmark’s Fary Lochan smokes over nettles, Thy and Copenhagen over beech wood which is commonplace for smoking fish and meat. Floki’s approach - using two-year-old sheep dung - seems the most extreme, but is a traditional Icelandic technique for smoking fish and mutton. The result is best seen in the distillery’s Smoked Reserve, which manages to combine the smoke and the savoury with meadow hay, silage some earthy barley elements and a mineral finish.

All of these varied approaches links distilling with culture and identity. There is no single Nordic style - not even a unified style for each country - but there is a shared mindset.

Here you can sense the liberation which comes with being a new whisky-making region. There are no boundaries, no orthodoxies to confront or fight against, just a blank page on which you can write your own history.