Seven Seals and Langatun triumph in the World Whiskies Awards

In last weeks World Whiskies Awards, hosted by Whisky Magazine, three of the whiskies we import from Switzerland picked up awards. 

Seven Seals Sherry Wood Finish 46% was awarded Gold and named Category Winner in the No Age Statement Swiss Single Malt category. In the same category Seven Seals Port Wood Finish 46% won Silver. 

Meanwhile not to be outdone, Langatun Old Bear 40% received the Gold Award in the Swiss Single Malt 12 Years and under category.

Time for a Swiss Dram!

Just Landed: Seven Seals Whisky

‘Time doesn’t matter, Taste matters’- prepare for a whisky experience that challenges your preconceptions. 

Pushing the boundaries in the innovation of whisky making, the team at Seven Seals whisky in Stans, Switzerland, have taken the craft of whisky finishing to the next level, and developed a new technique to accelerate maturation.  

Led by chemical engineer and entrepreneur Dr Dolf Stockhausen, the team at Seven Seals analysed the chemical interactions that take place during the maturation process. Following extensive experimentation they then developed a new process, which reduces the time required for maturation. Patents for their new technique are currently pending with the Swiss Federal Patent Office, and thus the full details must remain confidential. 

The new formula allows Seven Seals to produce Single Malts in record time, and in an environmentally friendly and efficient manner, without sacrificing quality, aroma or character, an approach summed up in their strap line ‘Time doesn’t matter, Taste matters’.

For their inaugural releases Seven Seals have finished spirit produced by other Swiss whisky distillers. The Seven Seals collection of Swiss Single Malts features the Port Wood Finish, a dynamic whisky with hints of honey, dried fruit and gingerbread, the Peated Port Wood Finish, which delivers peat with spice, and the Sherry Finish, a sweet whisky with all the flavours of a Christmas market. All are bottled at natural colour, at 46%, and are also offered at Cask Proof. 

Whisky distilling is a craft that has evolved over time. With increased production and reduced availability of the best casks, innovation is required to continue to improve quality. The team at Seven Seals believe they have found that elusive formula for the future of whisky.  They have already been recognized for their efforts, winning the Innovation Award in the Swiss Whisky Awards. 

Looking to the future Seven Seals are planning to build their own distillery at Luzern, Switzerland, and are aiming to start distillation in 2020. 

For a chance to taste, Seven Seals Whisky is launching in the UK at The Whisky Show in London on the 28^th and 29^th September.  Amongst others Seven Seals Whisky will be available from Master of Malt, Shop4Whisky and The Whisky Exchange. For more do visit 7sealswhisky.com, and check out their ad here. 

Seven Seals Whisky

Just Landed: New releases from Langatun

Langatun 10 Years Old 49.12% - Chardonnay Single Cask

Langatun distillery’s first 10 Year Old bottling.  For this important milestone, led by Hans Baumberger, Master Distiller, the senior members of the Langatun team have selected cask number 4, a former Chardonnay cask which was filled on the 4^th of March 2008, with new make distilled from un-smoked barley. Click here to watch Hans and Christoph sampling the cask! As always, this has been bottled at natural colour. The 10 Years Old has a lovely intense sweet nose, is rich and complex, and is reminiscent of a Sauternes first fill.  

Not unsurprisingly demand for this release has been intense in Switzerland, so we only have a small allocation for the UK, the only bottles available out with Switzerland. 

Langatun Port Cask Finish 49.12%

Six year old single cask distilled in 2012 from un-smoked barley. Initially matured in former Chardonnay cask 57, then finished for 7 months in a Port Cask. Natural colour, berries, stewed plums, figs, wine notes, rum and raisin chocolate, subtly sweet.

Langatun Cardeira Cask Finish 49.12%

Distilled in 2012 from un-smoked barley, and initially matured in a former Chardonnay cask, before being finished for seven months in a Cardeira red wine cask.  The Cardeira vineyard is in the Alentejo region in Southern Portugal, and is owned by Swiss winemakers Thomas and Erika Meier, who specialise in growing Touriga Nacional grapes. 

The fruitiness of chardonnay cask comes through, wine notes balanced with malt sweetness.  If you enjoyed the Quinta release, you will like the Cardeira. 

Amongst others these new Langatun releases are available from Master of Malt and Shop4Whisky.

Langatun Tasting at Hedonism Wines

Do join us for a Langatun Tasting with Christoph Nyfeler, joint owner of the distillery, at Hedonism Wines in the 15th of November. For more and to book, please click here (and scroll down).

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.