In late fall of 2023, we welcomed Alex, one of the founders of Stauning, to Saratoga! He brought quite a few special bottles for us to taste along with the core range of rye and single malt whiskies. At the end of the class, we did a blind tasting of three different single casks, all with varying ages and cask finishes. Blind tastings are so important in these situations because we are bringing bias into everything we taste. Hands down, including Alex’s vote, the clear winner was this floor-malted rye matured exclusively in a new charred virgin oak cask.
A bit about Stauning.
In 2005, in a small town on the West Coast of Denmark, nine friends (a doctor, a chef, a butcher, a teacher, a helicopter pilot, and four engineers), began a distillery. It was humble beginnings with two small pot stills set up in an old butchery. They didn’t know much about making whisky but they knew that they had the land around them: The wind, the sea, the fields, the heather, and the peat. And some of Denmarkβs finest water.
Stauning uses 100% local barley and rye and it is all floor malted in-house. They also continue to direct-fire their pot stills which is quite uncommon these days. There are now 24 stills in total. When they have peated expressions, they use local Danish peat and heather to burn in the kilns when drying their barley.
Stauning Danish Floor Malted Rye Virgin Oak Store Pick
Bottle Count – 240
ABV – 57%
Barrel # 4356
Mashbill – 70% malted rye & 30% malted barley
6+ years old
Hollyβs Tasting Notes: Fruit punch, chocolate, and rich oak spice. The palate shows more of that lovely rye spice with mint and herbal tea, along with the richness of mocha, cocoa, and chocolate-covered strawberries.
Charlesβ Tasting Notes: Honey, caramel, taffy, treacle, cotton candy and burnt sugar. On the palate, there is explosive toffee, nougat, cinnamon, and oak spice along with cherries and berries. The finish has more caramel, burnt sugar, and pop tarts.
