Whisky from...? Denmark

Our latest in the Whisky from...? series comes from Denmark and the @mdbp Braunstein distillery.

It is a Danish micro distillery and brewery located in the small town of Køge, not far from Copenhagen

Braunstein is owned by brothers Claus and Michael Braunstein heirs to a steel construction company founded by their great-grandfather.  Selling up they built a brewery, located at the Port of Køge, Denmark in 2004. In 2007 they added a distillery.

Braunstein produces a non-peated whisky with barley from a maltings in Jutland. The malt for their peated version travels along an interesting road. Danish barley is transported to Port Ellen on Islay, where it is malted, dried with peat smoke and returned to Køge.

The distilling equipment consists of a hybrid pot / column still, which can take 1,250 litres per batch. A third whisky is something of an oddball: Danish Corn Whisky, distilled from Danish corn - about 5,000 litres annually. The annual production is currently 80,000 litres of spirit and approximately 15,000 bottles of whisky. At the moment Braunstein is limited production-wise by Danish Navy safety regulations, since the distillery stands in an important harbour.

Braunstein does not mature its whiskies on-site but in various warehouses spread over Denmark (often part of beautiful old castle estates) using mainly first-fill Bourbon barrels and sherry butts. They also use rum casks on a smaller scale. 

2008 12yo Oloroso Single Cask

Distillery notes: 12 yo 2 months, cask strength (53.1%) single malt from an Oloroso cask.  Distilled in Sept 2008, matured in an Oloroso Sherry cask until 2012, after which it was transferred to a 27 litre Oloroso Sherry cask. Bottled in 2020 for The Whisky Circus it’s rich, intense, Christmas-cakey and at cask strength yielding 51 bottles.

My thoughts:

Appearance: Dark bronze in the glass, swirls leave a hairline crack which eventually beads up and falls as slow thin legs. 

Nose: Dry dunnage warehouse, sherried Christmas dried fruit - raisins, currents, figs, dates, prunes. The ABV tickles the nose. There are some oaky notes with cinnamon and nutmeg spices.

Palate: Thick sweet arrival, very drying. Treacle mixes with the sherried dried fruit from the nose. Brown sugar and some orchard fruit notes. Cinnamon spice from the nose comes through.

Finish: Long dry sherried notes with dried fruit.

Overall: Four years in an oloroso cask followed by 8 years in an 27 litre oloroso 'octave' delivers exactly what you expect - a very dark coloured whisky full of dry sherry notes. This is a lovely dram, perfect for a cold winter night.

Many thanks to Andy @MaltBox for the sample!