Mackmyra Svensk Ek (Updated)
Mackmyra Svensk Ek (Updated)
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The flagship Swedish whisky created using 100% Swedish ingredients. Casks coopered from Swedish oak create a more firm and spicy flavour. Svensk Ek is matured in Swedish oak casks giving the whisky a spicy character giving notes of sandalwood, dried ginger, black pepper, roasted oak barrel and herbs to our whisky.
We are constantly developing our ancient craft to make it even better. One example of our many innovations is to age a great deal of our whisky in smaller barrels thereby extracting more flavour.
70CL 46.1%
THE STORY BEHIND MACKMYRA SVENSK EK
Early on, we decided to create an entirely Swedish whisky, made in a Swedish way with Swedish ingredients. It was important to find a distinctive Swedish taste instead of just making a Swedish copy of a Scotch whisky.
Much of the world’s whisky is aged in American Bourbon-casks – from Jack Daniels, for instance. Casks that have previously been used for maturing sherry are also popular, thanks to the aroma it adds to the aged product. However, to create a whisky that was 100% Swedish, we wanted to explore the option of aging in casks made from Swedish oak. After all, wonderful oak forests… we have plenty of those in Sweden!
We ordered the very first Swedish cask and had it delivered in 2000. We discovered that Swedish oak is spicier, producing notes reminiscent of black pepper. A Swedish oak cask also produces hard, more intense flavours. We found it was a cask that promised something more, something different and distinctive; it gave us a whole new dimension to work with and, so, it has been the cask we have used ever since.
Casks coopered from Swedish oak create a more firm and spicy flavour. Before the wood is turned into casks, it is dried before being coopered by hand. The inside of each cask is then charred to open up the woodgrain, which helps the flavour of the whisky develop. Our Swedish oaks are much harder compared to the American oak for example, which is more porous. That means Swedish oak has to be cut in parts and thereafter staves resulting in less material from a Swedish oak that can be used to create a cask.
In 2003, we launched our Swedish oak casks as an ageing option for cask owners in Mackmyra Reserve. In 2008, we launched Den Första Utgåvan (The First Edition), where 5,4% had finished on Swedish oak casks. In the spring of 2015, we changed both the name and the look of Den Första Utgåvan, rebranding it as Svensk Ek (Swedish Oak).
10% of the whisky in Svensk Ek has been aged in Swedish oak casks. The character is spicy, with notes of sandalwood, dried ginger, black pepper, roasted oak and herbs. The spiciness is complemented by fruity undertones, bearing hints of vanilla and toffee, which come from oak casks previously used to age Bourbon.
Svensk Ek cask and bottle both won gold at the 2016 Stockholm Beer & Whisky Festival. The bottle has also previously received gold in the prestigious International Wine and Spirit Competition and from the equally prestigious International Taste and Quality Institute. Bottled Svensk Ek serves as an introduction to the whisky’s taste profile. If its profile pleases you, you can move on to your own 30-litre cask of 100% Swedish oak.
Svensk Ek remains one of our most popular whiskies and the flagship Swedish whisky. Svensk Ek is a part of Mackmyras core range and can always be found at Swedish Systemolaget.
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Mackmyra Distillery Information
The story of Mackmyra starts in Sälen, a ski resort in the west of Sweden, in March 1998. Eight friends met in a snow-covered cabin, each bringing a bottle of whisky with them to share on their holiday. There conversations one evening turned to whisky and the fact that whilst there was a lot of interest and love for single malt whisky in Sweden, there were no Swedish distilleries to make the golden nectar. That night, the eight decided to create a Swedish whisky.
Whilst they all loved drinking whisky, none of the eight had any experience in producing whisky, so they started touring Scotch whisky distilleries to study their work and gain an understanding of what they would need to do themselves.
Soon they were ready to approach the Swedish government, who were so keen on the idea that they shared the story with the press, meaning the musings of the eight were public knowledge the next day. There was no turning back now and they soon found the perfect location for their new distillery, a sturdy old electrical power station was rented. It had its own water source and had a rich history, having been used previously as a blacksmith, a mill and barn.
Whilst keeping their “day jobs” for another two years, the eight set about converting the building and setting up their small-scale pilot distillery, without outside expertise or finance. This included welding together a pot still themselves, scaling up from an old still they found in a museum. This first 30 litre pot still filled a 30 litre cask, a size that has come to represent Mackmyra’s production ever since.
Not being master distillers themselves they decided to open up their work to the public to get their input. Regular tastings were held and the results of these tastings shaped production going forward, allowing them to create a truly Swedish whisky. Public tastings are still important to Mackmyra today.
All the ingredients for this Swedish distillery are sourced locally, from local barley and bread yeast, to the Swedish peat and juniper branches used for smoking. They even use local Swedish oak for a number of their barrels, trees planted in the King’s Forest of Visingsö, originally destined for future Swedish warships (although now they use a number of different barrels to produce their fantastic expressions).
With their skills honed and their whisky perfected by local input the eight were ready to expand their potential and start producing whisky to sell. A much larger still was installed and on 18th December 1999 the first drops were distilled. From there Mackmyra has never looked back, a second large pot still arrived in 2002 and by 2010 they started construction of their new Gravity Distillery, which increased production five-fold by 2013, allowing many more people to try their fantastic creations.