A night at Akkurat.

One of the best aspects of meeting with friend and colleague Anders F is the fact that it gives us a legit reason to spend a few hours at Akkurat, Stockholm bar extraordinaire. As Anders is home for a few days before hitting the road again, we wasted no time in finding an excuse for a meeting at the auxilliary office.

If you've never been to Akkurat, there are a few things one doesn't want to miss. They include the mussels, the myriad of beers and the 600 or so malt whiskies in the bar.

Yesterday I can assure you we missed nothing. A few different pints were had (where the Golden Seahawk was a winner), mussels and then of course a couple of whiskies.

First off was a Douglas Laing bottled Pittyvaich from 1993. With a distinct fruitiness, a peat tone that isn't that clear in the Flora & Fauna bottlings and a finish that bordered on exotic fruit, it made for an excellent expression of this semi-lost Dufftown distillery. Anders found the finish a bit woody for his liking, but I wouldn't agree with that too much.

An hour or so later, and I decided to prove my point to Anders on the greatness of japanese malts (if you wonder, read a few earlier posts). The Hibiki 17yo was ordered, by which time we'd been joined by Daniel T and his sister, so we had a good tasting of them.
An interesting mix of new wood and sherry gives the Hibiki (which is a blend, believe it or not) a complex, but intriguing nose and taste.
Like a few japanese malts, there is a hint of polish and wood which is very pleasant...

After the Akkurat sessions, we headed off to see Titiyo at Strand. Not bad at all.
All in all, a good night out and about.

What's up with the japanese?

Sitting the other evening with a few friends listening to music, and a number of malts are served after dinner. The usual suspects which all are good, steady malts and we all enjoy.

Then there is one that gets everyones attention. One that rises above and surprises us all with a complex taste, depth and balance that is unrivalled among it's competitors.

It's 12 years old, it's a blended whisky and it's japanese.

Hibiki 12yo. Try it and discover why you always will want to taste something from the land of the rising sun from now on.

Funnily enough, we had a tasting a year back or so with only japanese malts, including some really exclusive ones, and the result from that was "ok". Good but far from fantastic. Throw one or two japanese malts in with a bunch of scots however, and they will steal the show. Every time.

This phenomenon was confirmed by Micke Nilsson, whisky-man-extraordinaire at Stockholm bar Akkurat. Anyone got any theories to how and why it is so? Let me know.