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The pilot distillery - where it all began
On 18 December 1999 all the permits were in place, and we were able to distil the very first drops of what was to be our Swedish malt whisky. At that time we used a small copper boiler, designed and welded together in house. The boiler had a capacity of 100 litres, and once we’d taken out the middle cut there were 30 litres left to mature in oak casks. This was when we hit upon the idea of the small casks.
Initially this was more of a practical consideration, so that we could change the parameters and experiment with every run and still be able to fill a whole cask with some kind of crude whisky for evaluation further down the line. We soon realised that the small casks also meant quicker maturation – the thirty-litre cask was here to stay!
After many years of testing and evaluation at the pilot distillery, we decided what we wanted a Swedish whisky to be like. We are really satisfied with not just one, but two whisky recipes. One is fruity and elegant, while the other has a harsher, smoky flavour. Of course we also use Swedish ingredients for the smoking process, including juniper twigs and bog moss peat from the local area.
The pilot distillery has now been replaced by a much bigger plant. The old copper boilers can now be found on Fjäderholmarna in the inner Stockholm archipelago, open to the general public in our Swedish Malt Whisky exhibition. Why not pay us a visit?
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Our very first copper still
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