Introducing our new Angels' Nectar Islay Edition

We are excited to announce the release of our new Islay Edition. 

Bottled at 47% the Angels’ Nectar Single Malt Scotch Whisky - Islay Edition is dominated by a gentle island peat smoke, which on the taste is a touch more medicinal than the Rich Peat Edition. Exploring further reveals a biscuity sweetness and a hint of beeswax. This whisky has been matured for five years in former bourbon barrels. 

Our intention with Angels’ Nectar is to release a series of small batch releases which showcase different styles of Scotch Whisky, something which takes time. Having more or less sold out of the Rich Peat Edition, as its successor we have selected a parcel of Islay single malt casks to bottle as our new peat smoke expression. Celebrating inconsistency we have bottled the Islay Edition as a single malt (as opposed to Blended Malt), at a higher strength, and in a new improved bottle.  

Whilst there have been Angels’ Nectar single cask releases in Germany and the Netherlands, this is the first Angels’ Nectar single malt release in the UK. Following the lead of the Angels, as with previous releases, the Islay Edition has been bottled at natural colour and is non chill filtered. 

For a chance to taste, Angels’ Nectar will be exhibiting at The Whisky Show in London on the 28th and 29th September, and at the Alhambra Whisky Festival, Stirling, on the 5th of October. Stockists of the new Angels’ Nectar Islay Edition, which has a RRP of £49.50, include Balliefurth, Drambusters and Shop4whisky. Export orders are also already en-route to L'Explorateur du Goût in France, Haromex in Germany and Whisky Tartan in Netherlands. 

Angels' Nectar Single Malt Scotch Whisky - Islay Edition

A visit to Langatun

Since we started importing Langatun I’ve been meaning to head over to Switzerland and visit the distillery. A recent changing of the guard at the distillery was a final trigger for my trip. Now I wanted to see not just the stills, but meet the new team.

Hans Baumberger, who founded the distillery after a career in brewing and the glass industry is the experienced side of 70. He’s been looking for a way to step back from the general running of the business side of things, pass on ownership to a new generation of Langatun custodians, whilst still overseeing distilling and maturation. In Christian Lauper and Christoph Nyfeler, he has found worthy successors who share his passion for Swiss drams. Christian’s whisky CV includes establishing the whisky retailer WhiskyUniverse, and organising the Whiskyschiff festivals. His new role at Langatan sees him focused on operations, but includes sales in western Switzerland. Christoph got a taste for whisky whilst working at the Art Cigar whisky bar in Lenzburg during his banking apprenticeship. His banking career took him to Singapore, but he later went on to buy the Art Cigar bar ten or so years later after he first worked in it. Intriguingly he is still on the rota for the same Thursday night shift he had as a student, but more often than not his Mum fills in for him. It’s a bit like me buying Aberdeen’s Blue Lamp pub, but I doubt my Mum would be so keen to spend her Thursday evenings pulling pints. I digress banking took Christoph to Singapore where he evolved into a whisky importer, a business he’s since sold. So now he’s back in Switzerland, and amongst other things has taken over responsibility for the export sales for Langatun.

Langatun has a heritage dating back to the 1850s when Han’s grandfather started distilling whisky as a sideline to the Baumberger family brewing business. Distilling was however a casualty of war time rationing during the First World War. The ban on the distillation of barley for alcohol remained in place up until 1999. There doesn’t seem to have been a long campaign to repeal it, more as a consequence of the streamlining of various Swiss alcohol laws in the late 90s, the ban on the distillation of whisky dropped of the statute book. Move into the new millennium and friends asked recently retired Hans to help them establish the Hasli Brewery in Langathal. As a sideline to that project he thought he’d have a go at distilling. So the brewery housed Hans’s Holstein still (only one then). In 2014 a permanent home was found for the distillery, in the Kornhaus, and a second still was added. The Kornhaus is a four hundred year old building built to store crops supplied by local farmers as payment of their taxes.  Despite the building’s age, and historic value, in recent decades the local council did not really know what to do with it, so this historic building has lain unused. Today the distillery is housed in a room in the basement. It is small in scale. We used to say Edradour would fit in the Glenfarclas mashtun. With a little bit of exaggeration, Langatun could fit in the Edradour mashtun. But the Holstein stills, with their labyrinth of pipes, valves and gauges look hi-tech compared to what I’m used to.  This is symbolised by Han’s electronic hydrometer. No floats in glass tubes, nor studying tables to declare the strength of the new make here. A quick dip and click, and the strength of the new make is confirmed at a mighty 87%.

So what else is different? The mashing is still done at the brewery, but the fermentation at the distillery. It’s a long fermentation though, six days. The first distillation gives a middle cut at circa 26%, and the second distillation up in the 80s, so smaller in scale but at higher strength. Before the casks can be filled, all production is inspected by the local customs officer, so the new make dripping into a stainless steel bucket is transferred to aluminium beer kegs to await the customs inspection (there is no spirit safe).  The still house doubles as the bottling hall, with Suzanne filling and labelling bottles, Old Deer on the day I visited, when not tending to the stills.

Whilst the distillery door is always open, guests are encouraged to visit on specific open days when there is more going on. My visit coincided with the Langatun Pipe Band gathering, so the place was alive with the sound of the pipes. The first and the second floor of this old building, which are reminiscent of old malting floors, have been converted into an event space for whisky tastings, dinners, jazz concerts and private functions. The arrival of Langatun is a perfect fit for the old Kornhaus, and has breathed new life into the building.

Lucky Hans has also found the perfect place to mature his whisky. Hidden behind the door of a building that looks like a large garage are four underground cellars built by what was one of Switzerland’s leading wine merchants in the 1950s and 1960s. As we wandered the cellars what struck me was we only saw two bourbon barrels, the vast majority of the stock is resting in wine or sherry casks. Hans doesn’t seem to have a problem finding good wood.

Back to the party at the distillery and I delivered a bottle of That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s Langatun bottling, for their archive. It’s a 2011 Sherry Fino cask with a lovely sweet sherried nose, which delivers hearty sherried fruit, with hints of figs and cognac on the taste (available here). The team were delighted with the presentation of bottle, the first independent bottling of Langatun, so a rite of passage for the distillery. Its also we believe the first Swiss Whisky ever bottled in Scotland.

The Kornhaus, home to the Langatun Distillery

The Holstein Stills

Hans Baumberger and his hydrometer. (Available here!)

A corner of the cellars. The strength and volume of every cask is recorded annually and noted on a log attached to the cask for customs purposes. 

The logo for the former Baumberger Brewery which inspired the naming of the Old Bear series. 

That Boutique-y Whisky Company's bottling of Langatun. 

'Whisky for the Gods' arrives in the UK

Langatun Single Malt Whisky, from Switzerland, of which the Old Bear Cask Proof expression has been described by Jim Murray in his renowned guide The Whisky Bible, as ‘Whisky for the gods…’, is now available in the UK for the first time.

With a history dating back to the 1860s, Hans Baumberger, grandson of the original founder Jakob Baumberger, reopened the Langatun Distillery in 2007.  Initially we are offering four triple distilled single malt bottlings from Langatun.  

Old Deer is the distillery’s classic single malt, distilled from un-peated barley, fermented with an English stout yeast, and matured in sherry and chardonnay casks. Bottled after six years maturation, Old Deer is offered at sipping strength of 40% and cask proof of ~62% Vol.

Old Bear, named as a tribute to the family’s former brewery, which had a bear as its emblem, is the distillery’s smoky offering. Distilled from peated malted barley and intriguingly matured in former Chateauneuf-du-Pape casks, again for six years. Like Old Deer, Old Bear is offered at 40%, and cask proof of ~62.5% Vol.

For a chance to taste Langatun (and Angels' Nectar Rich Peat), join Robert Ransom, at The Whisky Exchange’s Covent Garden store on the afternoon of Friday the 13^th of May, for a drop in tasting. Langatun is also available from Drinkfinder, Hedonism Wines, Lincoln Whisky Shop, Master of Malt, and Shop4Whisky. For more on Langatun, please also visit www.langatun.ch.

Smögen Svensk Single Malt Whisky and Strane London Dry Gin arrive in the UK

Smögen Primör, the first chance to taste single malt whisky from Sweden’s Smögen distillery, and Strane London Dry Gin, also produced at the Smögen distillery, are now available in the UK.

The Smögen distillery was designed and built in 2010 by pioneering distiller Pär Caldenby, on the west coast of Sweden, north of Gothenburg. With a production capacity of just 35000 litres, the comparatively small size of the distillery allows for an attention to detail not seen elsewhere. Until now every drop of Smögen Whisky has been distilled and blended by Pär Caldenby personally.

Smögen Primör is produced from optic barley of 45ppm and distilled by hand in small batches in a 600 litre spirit pot still. The spirit has then been matured in a combination of new European oak casks and former Bordeaux casks. Smögen Primör is heavily peated, powerful and rich for its age, and is bottled at natural colour and cask strength of 63.7% vol.. Primör is the first chance to taste Smögen, and indicates that the distillery has a exciting future. In Pär’s words ‘When I set out to build a distillery I was aiming to take inspiration from the best that Scotland, France and Japan could offer and make a very distinctive malt whisky, in fully traditional pot stills. The decidedly coastal location and use of heavily peated malt alongside virgin or first fill casks means a fast maturing whisky. Our first bottling, Primör, shows part of our progress to date and I am quite delighted with the result’.

Released alongside Primör is Strane London Dry Gin, Smögen’s handcrafted small batch gin. Twelve botanicals are used to produce three base gin styles; juniper, citrus and herbal, in batches of 45 litres. The base gins are then blended to produce the three expressions; Merchant, Navy and Uncut. Strane Merchant, the core expression is bottled at 47.4% Vol., and is blended to emphasize the smoothness that the high copper contact in the tiny whisky pot still gives to the spirit, while also providing depth and strength of character. Strane Merchant’s flavour is led by juniper, coriander and mint. Strane Navy is bottled at 57.1% Vol., or “100 proof”, is powerful and blended to highlight citrusy notes. Strane Uncut, at 75.3% is one of the strongest gins on the market, and will only be available in very limited quantities. Explaining his approach to Gin creation, Pär said ‘As a whisky man, it struck me that the art of blending should work very well with gin, as a good gin is about character and also – most importantly – about balance. To create the massive depth of character while retaining balance, the tiny pot still with its worm tub is important, but the blending makes it whole. Eminently sippable and makes for an enticing G&T’.

Smögen Primör is available from The Green Welly Stop, Single Malts Direct and The Whisky Exchange, whilst Strane is available at The Good Spirits Co., The Green Welly Stop, and The Whisky Exchange.

Strane & Tonic with Brambles