Northern Air – Stauning Høst

Stauning’s blended malt has been given a makeover. It now comes in a beautiful, unique bottle. This gave me the chance to review the Høst whisky. On top of that, I also created a cocktail inspired by nordic flavours.

Stauning uses malted barley and rye grain to make its Høst whisky. The grain is actually grown near the distillery. After fermentation and distillation in directly fired copper stills, the whisky spends time in ex-Bourbon casks, as well as heavily charred new American oak barrels. Finally, the blended whisky is finished in first-fill port barriques.

Fruits and new oak

You really taste the different types of barrels used for the Stauning Høst. First, you get a kind of mellow malt flavour, but the rye soon becomes noticeable. Afterwards, I found sherry fruits which turned out to be notes from the port finish. In the end, new oak flavours and the charcoal became noticeable. Overall, it was a very pleasant sip.

Basically just a Whisky Sour

My aim was to make a drink that had Nordic flavours but was still rather simple to make. At least for my standards. For a sweetener, I chose honeyberry (haskap) syrup and I also wanted to include liquorice. In the end, I settled for the excellent Sal Miakki sal ammoniac liqueur. For a slightly smoky note I used a few sprays of smoked sea salt solution.

The Northern Air starts with a combination of fruity berry notes, along with the taste of a traditional Whisky Sour. Obviously, you can also taste the smokiness form the saline solution, but it does not overwhelm the drink. Underneath it all, lies the liquorice flavours of the Sal Miakki. All in all, the cocktail reminded me a bit of red liquorice, but probably can also be enjoyed by non-liquorice lovers.

*The fact that I received a product reviewed in this article for free, did not – in any way – influence the rating of said product. I received the whisky for free from Kirsch Whisky.