2024 International Whisky Festival
This past weekend I went to the International Whisky Festival in Den Haag. I have attended and worked at numerous festivals like this for wine, but I haven’t ever experienced something like this for distilled spirits, let alone the focus on a single type of spirit. I had one goal in mind when I bought my ticket to this festival - find and taste as many Dutch whisky’s as I could. I did research ahead of time and tried to find as many of the Dutch distillers as possible, but I knew I would find more on the day of the event.
Den Haag, or The Hague as many people call it, is where we first stayed in the Netherlands. Even though we’ve only lived here for about 6 months, going there always feels a little like going home. It’s very familiar as we explored the city quite a lot in our first few weeks. We have been back several times, including a couple trips to purchase bagels at Netherland’s Bagels - the only place we’ve found that has anything resembling the round, doughy treats we love from the states.
On this day, I parked outside the city at a free park & ride (parking is quite expensive in cities) and took a tram to my destination - the Grote Kerk (big church). I especially enjoy using the trams to travel throughout the city. We primarily have buses in our city and to me it’s just not the same experience. Before I go on a huge tangent about public transportation, I need to get back on track. I arrived early as I knew there would be a line to get in. Thankfully, it wasn’t too cold and they had someone playing bagpipes to keep us entertained while we waited for the copious amounts of brown spirits waiting for us.
It might be good to stop here and take a quick moment to explain how whisky is made., but that actually is a long process to explain. If you are curious or don’t know the process, I have posted the steps at the bottom of the blog along with some comments.
Once inside, I was handed a glass and got to work. I went once around the church to scope out my first few tastes. I landed on Willem’s Whisky - a producer out of Zaandam, not far from Amsterdam. They had several whisky’s to offer, including a Sherry cask finish and even a ready to drink Manhattan cocktail. I’m never one to turn down a Manhattan, so of course I had to try it. We talked about how it would be excellent over a large piece of ice, or just keep the bottle in the freezer so there isn’t a need to water it down.
I also chatted with someone representing Millstone whisky, produced by Zuidam distillers who is well known for their Jenever products. I will make sure and do a blog or vlog on Jenever at some point as it is essentially the national spirit of the Netherlands. Millstone had several products from non-peated to heavily peated whisky, ranging from 5-10 years of aging. Their claim is that they were the first to produce a whisky in the Netherlands starting in 1996. I think that’s wild. I mean, Bushmills has been making whiskey (not a mis-spelling, Irish whisky has an “e”) for over 400 years and meanwhile whisky production in the Netherlands started in my lifetime. I enjoyed the couple tastes I had of Millstone and will definitely add some to my whisky shelf.
Next I made a stop at BUS whisky. They started distilling about 10 years ago and are based outside of Den Bosch. I spoke with distiller Marijn Blaakman who went through the wide range of product they offered - from single malt and blends to their whisky aged in tawny port barrels and their master distiller editions. It was impressive given the length of time they have been in operation. They also have a restaurant and B&B you can stay at if you want a fully immersive experience.
Last on the Dutch whisky tram, I stopped at Stokerij (distillery) Sculte. I spoke with master distiller Roy Kroeze about the unique characteristics of their product. The whisky is aged in 200+ year old Dutch trees from the Twente forest, close to the German border. These trees create unique flavors in the whisky and help craft something truly special. The lineup ranges from limited edition and single casks to peated and a bottling called Refill. The latter ages a bit longer due to it being a second fill in the barrel, taking its time pulling character from the special wood. I think they are on to something as they recently had two of their bottles achieve Double Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
My very last stop wasn’t a Dutch distiller, but I knew I had to stop and talk with Daithí O’Connell when I saw W.D. O’Connell Whiskey Merchants on the list. His story is a bit different as he isn’t a distiller, but rather a blender and bottler. I learned this was something quite common in the early days of whiskey production in Ireland. He finds and bottles (and sometimes ages a bit longer in special casks) the best whiskey available and packages them under his whiskey label. He is best known for the peated version called Bill Phil as that’s how the company got its start, however, that’s not common for Irish whiskey. Peat has long been a tradition in Scottish whisky and some might say a defining characteristic, but not in Ireland. It was great having a chat with a fellow O’Connell and the women next to us even joked that we looked like we could be cousins.
My first experience with whiskey was with an Irish one and I know I’ll always have a taste for the liquid gold coming out of my heritage country. I even toured the Jameson Old Middleton Distillery in 2005. It was quite an experience. I enjoy non-peated versions of whisky the most, however, as my tastes have evolved I also have brought a few of the smoky whisky’s into the mix. I know one thing for certain: I’m going to keep my eye on Dutch distillers and watch as the whisky offerings continue to increase. I’ve included a gallery from my afternoon below and if you want to see interviews, I put together a YouTube video documenting the day.
Cheers,
Chris
HOW WHISKY IS MADE:
A quick and basic lesson on whisky production. It’s impossible to cover this entire process and the small details every step of the way in a few short paragraphs, but this will leave you with a general idea.
First you start with a grain like rye, corn, wheat or commonly barley. You take that grain and “malt” it, meaning you steep it in water like tea. This process sets the foundation for the style because the water and grain selected take you down a one-way flavor road After 1-3 days of steeping, the grain is laid out on a malting floor where it will germinate in about a week. Once germination is underway, it is stopped by drying the grain with a kiln. This is because the grain has done what was needed which is create the sugars which will be turned into alcohol. If you want to create a smoky whisky, this is the point in the process where it is added. Peat (a special layer of soil) is added to the kiln fire in carefully calculated amounts to add smoky characteristics to the grain. There are many whisky’s that do not contain any peat and others that are considered heavily peated.
Once the drying process is complete, the grain is ground to ensure the grain is open and the sugars are easily accessible in the next step. Then it’s mixed with water again, warm but not boiling. The water is drained, collected and refilled 2-3 times. Yeast is added to the collected water which has the sugar content needed to create the first alcohol of about 10% in a few days time.
This alcohol is then transferred to a copper still. The still is heated so the alcohol evaporates, but the water does not. The evaporated alcohol flows through a gooseneck to the cooling arm. Once cooled, it returns to liquid form and the result is an alcohol that is about 25%. That liquid is heated again, leaving the water content behind once more, resulting in an alcohol that ranges from 65-70%.
A lot of people don’t know that in the final distillation process, the product is separated into three parts. The beginning and end aren’t used for the product as the flavors can be off-putting. This is also common when pressing grapes - many winemakers keep the middle portion for higher-end wines and use the beginning and end for other wines or sell that on the bulk market.
Finally, the distillate is transferred into barrels and put away for at least a few years and often much longer. Just like wine, there are so many factors that can influence the flavors of whisky from the water and grain to how many times it is distilled and the barrels that are selected for aging, just to name a few. And this is how there are so many whisky’s on the market and why they have an incredible range in flavor.