Good morrow gentlemen, and what a fine morrow it might be. Good morrow also to my old friend Mr. Tiffen's wife Mrs. Tiffen who, although not a gentleman, still has the wherewithal to withstand the power of my reviews without suffering any ill effects. I'm trying to actually get some reviewing done now as I keep promising. Let's see how long this one takes. Eiketyrne Sid og Vid, let's go!
Bit of an intro
It's Norwegian whisky! Not Scottish, not American, not Irish, not Canadian, not Japanese, but Norwegian. Very interesting. I bought this because it was the first bottle of Norwegian whisky I'd ever seen. I moved to Norway roughly eleven years ago at the time of writing, and for the first several there were very few Norwegian distilleries at all, most of which made aquavit, or akkevit or however you feel like spelling it. With Norwegian spelling the rule is if you're Norwegian you can spell it how you like and claim it's the spelling from your dialect and if you're not Norwegian you can be as correct as you like but it's still wrong. That's not important though, what's important is that Norway started issuing distilling licenses for new distilleries in 2005. Previous to that there had been a monopoly, similar to how there's a monopoly on retail of alcoholic drinks over 5%. Since 2005 there have been more and more distilleries popping up all over Norway and this one, Det Norske Brenneri (which means "The Norwegian Distillery") was the first privately owned distillery in Norway in 80 years. In fact if you go to the "about us" section of their website the first thing you will see is "we broke the monopoly" in Norwegian in large letters. They produce nice gins and aquavits was well as this whisky. In fact I do believe I reviewed one of their aquavits called Jær Akevitt in a mind bogglingly awesome review which you can read here.
The distillery released Norway's first ever single malt whisky in 2012 and called it Audney, then released Eiktyrne in 2015 which is when I bought this bottle. It doesn't have an age statement as part of the name, but rather the name Sid og Vid to distinguish it from other expressions. The name needs a little explanation as most whisky names do. Eiktyrne means "the oak thorned" and is the name of a stag in Norse mythology that stands on top of the hall of Valhalla nibbling the branches of Yggdrasil, the world tree that grows through all of the nine realms. This rather unusual stag was said to have copious quantities of liquid dripping from its antlers into Hvergjelmir which was believed to be the source of all the rivers in the world. I guess when Vikings drank from rivers or streams they thought they were drinking mythical antler juice. Sid an Vid are the names of the first streams that spring from Hvergjelmir, so it's an appropriate name for the first expression of a new Norse whisky.
While there's no age statement in the name of the expression as there is in many bottlings of scotch whisky, there is still an age statement on the bottle. It says "4 years +" on the back label. We can assume it hasn't reached five yeas yet since they would have said "5 years +", but over four years. Four and a half probably. Either way it's pretty young for a single malt whisky so it could end up being pretty lively. Time makes whisky mellow out and calm down, like it tends to with people. It's aged in oloroso sherry casks which are known to impart a rich sweetness, first in sherry butts which are very large and hold around 500 liters, then finished in a bloodtub which is a small sherrycask and holds only 30-40 liters. Bloodtubs are so small that they're very rarely used commercially. Their small size means it has a greater wood surface to volume ratio than larger barrels. That doesn't quite exactly give a faster maturation, but it gives it a greater wood influence over a shorter time. If regular maturation is like one teabag brewing for five minutes then a small cask maturation would be like two teabags brewing for two and a half minutes, possibly in a smaller cup. That's an experiment I'm going to do at some point, but not in this blog. In fact I'm thinking I'll make that it's own post. Anyway, from the double maturation in sherry and then more sherry I think we can expect a significant sherry influence.
What else can I say about it? It's bottled at 46% which is considered minimum for a craft whisky. Apparently it's the minimum strength a non chill-filtered whisky can be without it becoming hazy at colder temperatures. The oils and what have you that for the haze stay dissolved in the alcohol instead of coming out of solution and hazing up the whisky. Nothing wrong with hazy whisky, but people get upset if it's hazy while still in the bottle. Incidentally during my reviews of Diageo's six classic malts I wondered why they chose to bottle at 43% ABV instead of 40% to maximize volume, or 46% for more flavour. It turns out 43% used to be known as export strength and was standard for bottlings intended for the export market. Some countries, like South Africa, still have 43% as the legal minimum for whisky, so bottling at 43% as standard would allow them to sell their whisky at home or abroad without having to worry about which bottling went where and possibly saving money by being efficient about everything. That's my best guess anyway. Not all that relevant right now, the point is that Eiktyrne Sid og Vid is 46%.
Went off on a bit of a rabbit rail there, but I think we found the rabbit. There's no colouring added and no chill-filtering with this whisky and it carries a label with an explanation in Norwegian that the fats are not removed by chill-filtering because they're an important part of the flavour profile, and that precipitates (scotch mist) can therefore form. I'm happy that they don't chill filter and even more happy that they explain why, potentially influencing consumers to buy more non chill-filtered whiskies, increasing demand for them and in turn causing producers to increase the supple and having the ultimate effect of increasing the general level of whisky quality the world over. Hoorah! The bottle is only 50cl instead of the more typical 70cl we see in scotch whisky. A lot of the Norwegian distilleries are selling bottles this size and it concerns me greatly. There are two more expressions of Eiktyrne I'd like to try, but they're upwards of 70 quid a bottle. I'd be happy to pay that if they were 70cl bottles, but I'm a little reluctant to pay that much for a 50cl bottle. My little 50cl bottle cost me 549.50 Norwegian kroners. That's £46.91 in real money, $62.54 of crazy American hot dog dollars, €52.18 in European baguette pennies or 1,448,336.82 Vietnamese Dong at the current rate of exchange. (Hee hee, dong.) Again, I'd be happier about the price if the bottle was bigger. A bottle of ten year old laphroig (which I reviewed quite a long time ago here) is slightly cheaper and is 70cl. I wouldn't worry too much about the price if I were you though, it doesn't look like this whisky's available any more. Not in Norway or anywhere online that I could find anyway. Other expressions are, just not Sid og Vid.
Packaging
The whisky's presented in a simple clear glass bottle. A lot of the new distilleries are using the same bottles and I found out that there is only on e bottle supplier in Norway so that explains that. They do a lot of different bottle shapes, but I think this is the best one for whisky. The other shapes just aren't whisky-ish and this one's also one of the cheapest. I have a bottle of new make spirit from Oss distillery that I spotted in the state run off-license in another town. Bottle 256 of batch 1 of new make. Thought it might be collectible one day so grabbed one. Should have got two and tasted one. Now that some of the distilleries are starting to make a bit of money they're beginning to do custom bottles, some of which are pretty nice. This was a good choice of bottle for this particular whisky because it shows off the colout of it marvelously. Have a look.
No colouring added
I think that's pretty lovely for a whisky's natural colour. It was quite eye catching on the shelf and the stout, clear bottle shows it off very well. The label's pretty simple and quite tasteful. Not too fancy, not cluttered, not silly. In fact there are an awful lot of things that the label is not. We should probably have a bit of a closer look and see if we can say what it is.
A lot of things are not this
Simple. Bit of gold on it. Possibly a bit too much, but who can say what the correct amount of gold on a whisky bottle's label is? It's got the weird mythical stag on there with it's drippy antlers. It's got the name and a brief description in nice clear writing. It's a sherried Norwegian single malt. Nuff said. I do generally prefer darker colour schemes, but I think this is a pretty good label design. Let's have a look at the back.
Another good label
It's another nice label. An interesting description of where the name comes from on one side and the vital statistics on the other. Interestingly the writing on the label is all in English apart from the little label to the right that you can barely see in the picture that explains about the chill filtering and the possibility of precipitates forming which is in Norwegian. I think this might suggest that they're intending to export some if not most of this whisky. The information they give about the whisky is the relevant stuff and is nice and clear. Bottle number 165 from cask 1000 of 1041 casks. Bottled at 46%, double matured in olorosso sherry casks, first matured in a sherry butt and then finished in a bloodtub, aged 4 years. That's what you need to know and it's not hidden in secret codes and innuendo which kind of happens a bit with scotch single malts. Not much marketing fluff here, but that's not really the Norwegian way. A good example of the Norwegian approach to marketing is the slogan of an estate agent in my town. Other estate agent slogans from other parts of the world include things like "Where dreams come home", "Your gateway to a richer life", and "Let us guide you home". The slogan of this particular Norwegian estate agent translates to "Do you want to buy or sell a house?" They're a bit more direct and I might go as far as to say honest about it.
I've been pondering a bit the significance of the bottle and cask numbers. Part of me is going "who cares?" and part of me feels like it makes it a little more special. The numbers look like they're hand written with a marker pen, but looking closely it seems like the ink is printed on. I suspect the label is in digital form and they're able to hand write the numbers in some kind of new fangled computer device like an iPad and the hand written numbers are printed. Maybe so they don't rub off or whatever. If they only produced 1041 casks of this whisky then it's got to be a pretty small distillery, which it is. In fact it has a capacity of only 2500 liters a year according to whiskysaga.com. They also say that they source their wash from Nøgne Ø, a brewery in the same town who make some very nice beers. A couple of odd tasting ones too, but mostly very nice ones. Now that I've learned that little fact I'm more inclined to try another version or two of Eiktyrne. To get a picture of how small an operation we're talking about here Glenfiddich has a capacity of 13,000,000 liters per year. I do write a lot of irrelevant twaddle don't I. Well done for getting this far. If you read it all you can reward yourself with a wee dram. If you skimmed over it and just read this bit then you have to have a dram of something disgusting like cheap sambuca.
Smell in the bottle
On opening
Definitely smells sherried.
Dried fruits.
Dry kind of musty dusty old floorboards.
Vanilla.
Kind of Christmas spices.
Clove.
Maybe allspice.
Spiced orange.
Cinnamon.
Oaky, woody, cut wood.
Fruitiness calmed down now, still with raisin there though.
Toffee
Brown sugar
Hint of mint, apparently common to sherry barrels
A loooooong time later
I've had this bottle on the go for a very long time. In fact it's been half full for about five years and has changed considerably:
Tawny port.
Bit of orange marmalade.
Bit of mint.
Hint of grape juice.
Sort of dried fruit syrupiness, which is pretty much what oloroso sherry is.
Appearance
At first the colour of this whisky was as it look in the first picture. Scroll up and have a look. Beautifully dark with a distinct reddish hue. I mentioned above that the bottle has been half full for about five years and it's had an interesting effect. There will have been some oxidization and the flavours will have changed a little. There has also been a change in the colour. Have a look.
Not very red
It's definitely not as red as it was at first. It still has a coppery tone to it, but definitely not the redness it had at first. I'd almost call it brown, but I'm going to describe it as closer to tawny. Partly because owls are cool, but partly because of the smell it has now. I'll also repeat that it's dark for a natural coloured whisky, giving away a suggestion of it's sherry maturation.
Neat
It changed a bit over the years so I'm including both sets of tasting notes.
Nose
New
Dried fruits and brown sugar.
Slightly unripe banana with brown sugar.
Mellow nature, feels like there's some complexity there.
Nice soft brown sugar still, some dried fruit, very sherry.
Touch woody.
Bit herby, savoury herbs.
Bit bready, kind of wholemeal bread.
Soft muscovado sugar.
Hint of marmite - surprising.
Banana and brown sugar.
Sherry and banana.
5 years later
Tawy port.
Spearmint.
Caramel.
Pva glue (school glue).
Something sour, fruity sour.
Brown sugar.
Not so much dried fruits, more porty. Could be sherry I guess.
Touch smoky?
Savoury herbal note, Kind of want to say sage, but not sure about that.
Bit of mint I think. Fresh mint.
Bit of dried fruit like, christmas cake.
Suggestion of brandy, kind of christmassy.
Arrival
New
Sweet.
Soft brown sugar.
Sweet, dried fruits.
Touch herbal.
5 years later
Initially bitter-sweet.
Bit nutty.
Kind of almond, a light nuttiness.
Maybe brazil nut.
Bit of dried fruit, kind of brandy like.
Quite a nip - young. More apparent than when it was new. I think some of the sweetness has broken down.
Cooling sensation, kind of minty or menthol.
Development
New
Bit of savoury herbs.
Sherry.
Brown sugar.
Hint of mintiness.
5 years later
Kind of minty, spicy but cooling. Almost mentholy. If it was going up my nose more I'd say menthol.
Bitter dark chocolate
Faintest hint of spices in a fairly general way.
Hint of toffee maybe.
Somehow tired a bit like stewed tea.
Finish
New
Hint of ripe banana.
Touch herbal.
Not to complex, not too long.
5 years later
A little bitter, dark chocolate.
Fruity dark chocolate, like the cocoa fruitiness some dark chocolates have.
Demerara bown sugar.
Muscovado sugar.
High note of mint with deep, sweetish dried fruit, raisiny note. Not much in between at this exact moment. Not sure how I feel about that. Almost want to call it discordant. Certainly not unpleasant, but odd and interesting.
Stewed tea style bitterness.
Grass. A fresh blade of grass.
Much longer than I remember and very different.
1-2 tsp water
Nose
New
Soft brown sugar.
Rich dried fruits and soft brown sugar.
Touch of nuttiness, bit like marzipan, bit almondy.
Bit of oaky vanilla and a hint of fresh mint.
Marzipan with a kind of warming spice, maybe a bit of cinnamon.
Toasted nuts, with a sweetness. Not quite honey toasted nuts, but that kind of ballpark.
Sweet herbal, maybe angelica.
Dried fruits and brown sugar.
Clove.
Spiced orange, pomander orange I think, but not as cinnamony
Brown sugar sweetness, bit more towards caramel now, with christmassy spices.
5 years later
Immediately more cereally, sugary cereal.
Apple juice.
Soft brown sugar, like a soft smell, not necessarily soft sugar.
Rich honey for a second.
Fermenting friut, not unlike over ripe honeydew melon.
Over ripe green grapes.
Keep expecting banana but no sign of it.
Touch of menthol.
After a while a sour banana-ishness developed.
There's a sourness that I have to say remind me of vomit, but christmas vomit. Julebord vomit. Surkål, red wine and stomach acid. Not actually an unpleasant smell if you don't think of it as vomit more like a red wine and pickled cabbage smell. See the extra notes, I felt like this needed some justification.
Bit of something like a bad, really pungent, unhealthy fart. but just a tiny bit. Not sure if these things are interesting or bad because there's a caramelly, raisiny, sherryish not with it that kind of tones it down and makes it seem ok.
Soft, powdery, caramelly, brown sugar sweentess is very pleasant.
Arrival
New
Slightly nutty, flaked almonds, almond paste.
Hint of dried fruit.
Quite herby and savoury, not as sweet as it was neat.
Sweet, bit of spices and dry savoury herbs.
Faintest suggestion of gloss paint.
5 years later
Bitter-sweet.
Bit of caramel.
Bit of mint.
Grape juice for a second.
Chocolatey orangey marmalade arriving earlier as the water does it's thing.
Touch of chili, those red ones that aren't too hot that you can easily get at the supermarket.
Development
New
Rich, sweet nuts.
Dry herbs, dried fruits.
Quite savoury.
Hint of cocoa.
Spices, cinnnamon maybe, bit of clove.
Drying sendsation.
A bit of rawness in the back of the throat, kind of a nip, indicating youth, although it's quite well masked by the mintiness.
5 years later
Kind of drops into dark chocolate.
Dark caramel, not teacle but not far off.
Rich caramelly chocolateiness.
Touch of orangey marmalade, like really sweet orange at first then going to more bitter marmalade.
Nice dark chocolate with a bit of mint, kind of spear mint.
Finish
New
Hint of mint on the back of the throat.
Slightly peppery, like ground black pepper.
Drying sensation, but quite rich almost like having eaten oily fish, but without any fish taste. (I made that note 5 years ago and I don't think I understand what I meant)
Faint mintiness coming in at the back of the throat again.
Bit of woody tannin.
Sweet slightly liquorice thing, maybe angelica.
5 years later
Touch of dark dried fruits.
Much less to the finish than when it was neat.
Just a shade of savoury herds. Definitely mint in there but a touch of sage, maybe thyme. Fairly general savoury herb taste.
Still got some dark chocolate but the mintiness is more dominant
A few extra comments
Leaving a bottle of whisky half full for five years isn't something I intended to do or intend to do again, although it was very interesting. I'm not entirely sure what happened over those five years, but something definitely did. The colour changed and the flavour profile changed. I assume there was a decent bit of oxidization going on what with the bottle being half full of standard Norwegian air which is approximately 21% oxygen, but I want to say that the flavours married together better over that time. There seemed to be a bit more of a complexity, like orange became more like marmalade, brown sugar became more like toffee that kind of thing. It was generally not as sweet as it was at first and flavours were not as distinct. There was a bit of brown sediment in the bottom of the bottle after five years too. I'm not sure what that was, but it didn't give it any texture that I could feel in my mouth. I assume there had just been tiny particles of whatever it happens to be suspended in the whisky all along that had gradually settled out after five years. Also notable after the five year break was a lack of banana. I read my notes from when it was new and was expecting banana to arrive at any moment, but it was a total no-show. What the extra five years didn't seem to do was mellow the spirit. It was still pretty feisty, with the same rawness in the throat that it had when it was first opened. I want to say that more barrel time would calm it down, but I don't feel like I have the experience that would give me the certainty.
The mint note seems to run throughout the taste experience, fading out an coming back at various points. Once you notice it you can't un-notice it and although it doesn't dominate the flavour it does kind of keep your attention. I once managed to listen in on a whisky tasting that Fred Laing of the Douglas Laing independent whisky company (soak up the name drop) was doing at the hotel I work at. He mentioned that mint is a common and quite surprising tasting note in sherried whiskies. I've had sherried whiskies with a hint of it, but with this one it was more prominent than I've experienced before. I brought a sample to a bloke in Filey who runs a hotel with a whisky bar when I was attending the Annual General Meeting with my old friends Mr. Tiffen and Mr. Eaton. His verdict was that it was young and a bit over sherried which he thought was possibly to try to hide the fact that it's young. I don't think they're trying to hide the fact that it's young myself, it says on the bottle that it's 4 years old so they're owning it's youth. The bloke in Filey never saw that though, I decanted a little into a miniature bottle for him. I would agree that it could be a bit over sherried. I think they might be trying to get as much flavour as possible from the casks rather than trying to get the right amount of flavour to balance the flavours of the spirit. Most of my tasting notes were things usually associated with sherry cask matured whiskies so I'm leaning a bit towards it being a cask flavourd whisky more than a cask matured whisky. I feel like I'm being harsh there as it's a very nice dram. The point about the mint is that I suspect there being so much of it throughout the taste experience is evidence that the sherry influences the flavour an awful lot. It's not just a hint of mint in the aftertaste, it's noticable throughout. Subtle, as I said, not dominating, but noticable.
Now to the vomit smell. I tried to describe it but it didn't sound good so I'll try again. A Norwegian Christmas dinner as served at the hotel I work at back in the day when it was run by a different company consisted of ribbe (which is pretty much roast pork belly with the crackling on) accompanied by surkål, which is a lot like sauerkraut. In fact it is sauerkraut, the two words mean exactly the same thing. I guess there could be differences between Norwegian and German recipes, but it's pickled cabbage, has a sour taste and smell and it goes very nicely with fatty meat. Also served with the meal was far more red wine than was sensible. Norwegians tend to be absolutely stone cold sober or smashed out of their brains and unable to walk with not much in between. It's part of their culture I suppose and dates back to whenever Viking learned how to make mead. Probably. Google that, I might be wrong. Ok, I made it up. Anyway, more than a few people ate and drank far too much and... overflowed onto the carpets. The smell was of pickled cabbage and red wine, with some digestive juices thrown in. I think the smell I was trying to describe is more of the red wine with pickled cabbage but just a shade more sour. It mostly wasn't the christmas sick, but for a couple of moment it was close enough to it to make me think of it. There was also a pungent fart smell at one point despite my being alone and flatulence free. Work that one out.
Conclusion
It seems the Norwegians can hold their own when it comes to single malt whiskies. Although young, and a bit lively as a result (particularly with larger sips), I think there's some promise here. I'd be interested to taste the new make spirit and see how much of the flavour was from the wood and how much was from the spirit. Looking at Det Norske Brenneri's other expressions it looks like they're really, really into cask flavours. They also produce a range of nice gins and aquavits, where the flavour is from botanicals used to flavour an otherwise flavourless spirit, and I sort of wonder if their philosophy is to add flavours to neutral spirit rather than make a spirit with it's own character and mature it. On the standard one to ten scale (or I suppose in this case it'll be an en til ti scale what with it being Norwegian) I'm rather sad to be finishing the bottle. I can't buy it again because it's run out nationwide and possibly planet wide, making this bottle an unrepeatable experience. I'm definitely considering picking up a bottle of at least one of the other expressions, probably the quadruple cask thing. From what I've read it's a combination of the same spirit aged in four different casks and then blended. Seems to add credence to the idea that they flavour neutral spirit with casks rather than maturing a spirit that has its own flavour. I'll be on the lookout for newmake of theirs too. It's sold out on the vinmonopolet website, but still on there so maybe they'll get it back in stock when they've made another batch. That could be interesting.
Thanks for reading all that. I expect there are a lot of typographical errors and a lot of meandering bull plop. I wrote most of this at the end of a week of night shifts so I'm not expecting it to be perfect or even make sense. i enjoyed it though, and I'm going to order a pizza and watch Futurama now to celebrate. My plan is for the next review to be the first of my advent calendar rums, and it should be up on the blog very soon what with it being the 1st of december tomorrow. Remember to come back every single day up to and including Christmas day for rum reviews galore, unless I forget or can't be bothered.
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