Eld Vatten Svenska champagne cask

Here is an unusual beast. It’s a 4 year old from Sweden’s now closed Grythyttan distillery. The casks were bought by the Swedish bottler Eld Vatten. This one is slightly peated at 15ppm, and matured fully in ex-champagne barrels. About 350 bottles were ever released, making this quite rare considering it’s from a closed distillery. So, I had a few friends over last night and I had this blind ( label removed ) along with about 3 Trader Joe red wines ( each around $4, also labeled removed). The TJ wines were done and finished by all. This here was only appreciated by a whiskey drinker. She ( yes..she) guessed it was a 10-15 yr old Springbank. She had a good logic for that—-there’s a certain dusty, old library with a bit of sulfur aroma to it. The taste is smoke, honey and red apples. There’s a bit of herbal aftertaste, like thyme and rosemary. Really unusual. It’s by no means a “beginner “ whiskey. It’s different, like nothing else. She liked it enough to polish off 1/2 the bottle and ask to take the rest home.