Mackmyra Grönt Te

The Maker

Mackmyra is one of the trailblazing distilleries. Established in 1999 it was Sweden’s first whisky distillery, meaning that it was instantly bringing something new to the market. With the effect of local climate on whisky maturation well known, Sweden’s high latitude means that making whisky that far north is a tricky process. To compensate, Mackmyra need to do things a little differently and at a slightly higher cost.

This includes maturing much of their whisky in large numbers of tiny 30l casks to increase the surface to volume ratio and speed things up a little bit. They also have a seven story gravity distillery which looks a bit like a child’s activity centre where the 100% Swedish barley is lifted to the top and then works its way back down as it goes through the various creative stages with whisky existing on the ground floor. This makes the process super efficient and allows Mackmyra to make a big play out of its sustainability (using as much local oak as possible) and innovation. Now more than twenty years in, Mackmyra has long overcome its initial constraints and has produced a long list of varied whiskies and gins which have gained international acclaim.

At the centre of this success has been Mackmyra’s Master Blender Angela D’Orazio. Angela is well known in the Swedish drinks business but shot to international fame in 2019 when she became a ‘Whisky Legend’ in Whisky Magazine’s Hall of Fame, and it’s this development which led to the expression in question here.

The Expression

As a thank you to Angela for all her work at the distillery and the profile her work has achieved on the international stage through the Hall of Fame and other awards, Mackmyra give her the chance to make anything she wanted. Her choice was Grönt Te, perhaps the world’s first Green Tea whisky.

To deliver the whisky Angela worked with Japanese Tea importer Yuko Ono to identify a series of four green tea blends which would deliver a new and unique flavour. I’ll be the first to admit that I know very little about green tea, but the process here appears to have been to brew the tea in an Oloroso Sherry liquor and then use it to season some Oloroso Sherry casks for an undisclosed period of time. Once emptied these are naturally then filled with the whisky and left to mature for another unknown period of time.

Despite some lack of clarity on that step Mackmyra is then very specific about what blend makes up the final bottle. They take 128l of that green tea seasoned malt and add it to another 128l of unseasoned Oloroso Sherry casks; 100l of first fill Swedish Oak casks; and between 100l and 200l of ex-Bourbon Casks. This means that in effect only around a fifth of the final bottle is seasoned with the green tea. It's then bottled at 46.1%

The Neck Pour

The first thing to say is that it's easy to call this whisky interesting. But then interesting tends to be a cover word for ‘not very nice’ and that would be unfair. The initial nose and flavour is that of a light sherry, but definitely more spicy that normal, edging more towards a Marsala if anything – which I presume is down to the Swedish Oak which is said to hold a harsher, spicier flavour than whisky drinkers are used to. When that is over you are hit by the floral and pepper notes, and a ‘strange’ bitter sensation on the bottom of your tongue.

My green tea radar isn’t advanced enough to recognise the subtlety of the four blends here, so I think if I had not known that’s what it was I would not be able to identify it as green tea. Instead what I get a very strange, bitter taste and thick mouthfeel which you’re likely to either love to hate. That's all then followed by the taste of biting down on a cooking apple. The finish is rather short and doesn’t bring anything new to the party.

The Body

By halfway through the bottle the flavours have mellowed somewhat. On the nose there’s a much stronger sense of butterscotch and vanilla. Taste wise the spice has also reduced and some more traditional sherry tones dominate while that strange bitter green tea taste and texture remains. If anything it's all coming together well and it has become rather enjoyable.

Final Thoughts

As I get to the end of the bottle I haven't really discovered anything new, but what has happened is that I have fully adjusted to the initial strange/interesting green tea element. If anything, I am now curious what would have happened had the seasoned casks made up much more of the blend?

The obvious question is would I buy it again? And to be honest, I won't be rushing out to get another bottle. While I enjoyed it, it is primarily a curiosity rather than something I'd make sure was always on the shelf. Nonetheless, I feel that I am underselling it. This is an enjoyable curiosity which I'd encourage everyone to explore - even if you don't like green tea.