A round-the-world whisky tour for peace


November 11, 2026

Bleuet

A round-the-world whisky tour for peace

On this anniversary of the First World War armistice, we find ourselves wondering what’s supposed to be so terribly old-fashioned, so frightfully uncool, about peace. And why some so-called leaders, the very excrement of humanity, still think nothing of killing children. May they burn in hell and may millions of lice make their own descendants’ arses itch for all eternity. Right, on to the whiskies....

We can safely say that ‘whiskies from the rest of the world’, an expression so often used by our Scottish friends, has had its day. It’s still accurate enough in the literal sense, but the whisky world has come a hell of a long way. Now I must admit we have so many ‘world whiskies’ in the queue that we’re completely snowed under, but we’ll pick a few that caught our attention for one reason or another. And we’ll go wherever we fancy, seeing as we’re not paying for the jet fuel…

At Feddie in Norway. They mean it.

Kythrea 2022/2026 (60.8%, OB, Aristides Distilling, Cyprus, single rye, cask #ASC24, 730 bottles)

Hurrah, a new whisky country on Whiskyfun! Always an immense joy… Kythrea is a small town in the northern part of Cyprus, quite close to Nicosia. Lovely people, from what we’ve seen! Colour: full gold. Nose: firm yet fat, compact yet honeyed and aromatic, with that pumpernickel character we always enjoy so much. Honey spice cake with a little cumin and curry powder, crushed mustard seeds and mullein flowers. With water: wholemeal breads and candied citrus, plus citron liqueur (cédratine, which also makes a splendid spritz). Mouth (neat): superb citrus bread, cumin and aniseed, pink peppercorns, touches of juniper and, of course, our old friend pumpernickel. With water: honey and pink peppercorns take centre stage. A little more honey, too. Finish: long, splendidly sweet and spicy. Comments: this baby came as a very big surprise when we first tasted it, rather hurriedly, at Whisky Live Paris. And so it did again today. There’s a malt as well, which we’ll have next time.
SGP:651 - 88 points.

Thomson ‘Full Noise - Manuka Smoke’ (52%, OB, New Zealand, single malt, +/-2026)

Was Nigel Tuffnell himself involved in this project? It’s New Zealand barley smoked over manuka wood, while manuka honey is known as far away as Alsace. That tells you something… Colour: pale gold. Nose: lovely and distinctive, with soft, very floral smoke and almost a touch of honey (manuka, naturally). Some pink grapefruit. Very pretty, a long way from peat. And from Nigel Tuffnell. With water: sandalwood and cedarwood. The smoke remains soft and floral. Mouth (neat): how funny, and how good! Peppery lemon zest, fir ash, little gherkins, a touch of baijiu and chlorophyll… With water: it gets even better. With all these advances in genetics, could we cross a fir tree with a lemon tree? Finish: fairly long and, above all, beautifully fresh. Ash and gherkins. Comments: very original and very good, I find. We may stop short of ordering a case of double magnums, but yes, it’s very, very good.
SGP:463 - 87 points.

While we’re down that way…

Sullivans Cove ‘Double Cask’ (47.5%, OB, Australia, batch #DC127, ex-brandy, +/-2026)

And here we are back in Hobart, Tasmania! Colour: gold. Nose: I’m not sure what part the brandy plays in all this, but it’s stuffed to the gills with nougat and salted butter caramel to begin with, then there’s some fresh, rather distinguished wood (really) and peanut butter in quite unreasonable quantities. The trouble is that we adore peanut butter at WF, a well-documented sign of our tendency to revert to childhood. Mouth: much the same, with lashings of lemon juice and a young, sharp Sauvignon blanc. It all leads to Timut pepper and the return of the salted butter caramel. Finish: rather long, on milky coffee, pink peppercorns and… salted butter caramel. And fudge. Comments: it really does take us straight back to childhood. Adorable.
SGP:551 - 87 points.

While we’re in Tasmania…

Hellyers Road 23 yo ‘American Oak’ (55.6%, OB, Australia, first fill bourbon, cask 3114.4, 2026)

Colour: gold. Nose: geranium flowers, fresh kumquats, quince, mango, lilac. Sublime. With water: little fruit sweets, Haribo’s finest and so on. Mouth (neat): wonderfully taut citrus, peppery honeys and cherry-stalk tea. With water: rooibos and blood orange. Finish: much the same, perhaps the quietest part. Comments: we used our ‘quick-express-de-la-muerte’ tasting method, as we already knew what was going to happen. The finish cost it a point, dura Lex, sed Lex.
SGP:651 – 90 points.

To (try to) hold its own against that Hellyers Road, it’ll take at least…

Smögen 10 yo 2015/2026 (58.4%, The Whisky Blues, Sweden, oloroso sherry quarter cask, cask #37, 131 bottles)

More of those superb labels, immune to all the AI slop we see proliferating in certain quarters. I should add that, quite logically, quarter casks are half casks. Don’t ask. Colour: full gold. Nose: amusingly, there are echoes of the Thomson’s, probably down to the way the sherry and the spirit come together. Pine-cone ash, cedarwood, roast chestnuts, fir wood, a little varnish, grilled bacon, walnut wine… With water: little change to report, apart from the arrival of a little cider apple. Mouth (neat): much livelier, sharper, lemony and peppery… With water: back come the varnish and walnuts, with notes of smoky sake… Finish: long, with increasingly fermentary notes. Comments: excellent, of course, if perhaps a tiny bit less precise than usual.
SGP:555 - 87 points.

While we’re up north and on the quarter casks…

Thy 4 yo 2020/2025 (50.5%, The Whisky Trail, Elixir Distillers, Denmark, malted rye, new American oak quarter casks, 645 bottles)

Indeed, we’re late, but we did drag our feet a little, as ‘new American oak quarter cask’ sounded a bit like a double punishment. Then again, we adore Thy and we adore Elixir, so here we are… Colour: full gold. Nose: all the caramel of virgin oak, times two. In short, it noses like a box of fudge straight from Glasgow or Edinburgh airport. With water: the citrus arrives in droves. Mouth (neat): the rye comes through much more clearly, having managed to break through all that new wood from the little casks. Pink grapefruit, lime and country bread, all very lovely. With water: it loosens up, with flowers and citrus… Finish: much the same, though the wood makes itself more felt now. Comments: rather excellent, and probably about as good as you can make a four-year-old rye, malted or otherwise.
SGP:551 - 84 points.

Still up north…

Feddie 4 yo ‘Distillery Edition’ (57.2%, OB, Norway, +/-2026)

It’s ‘funded’ and ‘founded’ by women. Who could possibly object? Cardhu has taken much the same line in its advertising for a few years now (and there’s Nc’Nean, Penderyn and so on). Colour: pale white wine. Nose: fresh and lively, on apple, lemon, fruit sweets and fresh barley. With water: much the same, plus gooseberries. Mouth (neat): fresh and lively, on apple, lemon, fruit sweets and fresh barley. Yes, just as on the nose. With water: more of the same, plus candied peel. Lemon curd. Finish: likewise. Comments: it all hangs together beautifully, with no faults to speak of. Perhaps not terribly distinctive, but really very good in that young, fruity style.
SGP:650 - 84 points.

Millstone 9 yo 2016/2025 (54.2%, Dràm Mor, the Netherlands, PX sherry butt, cask #B0309, 688 bottles)

It’s always an excellent sign when the indies, especially the Scots, pick a ‘world’ cask. It’s rather like being awarded the Légion d’honneur, seriously, even if everyone’s becoming a little more liberal these days. Colour: reddish amber. Nose: walnuts, Nutella (sorry), dark chocolate and milk chocolate. Brownies. No more, no less. With water: it gets sweeter, with sultanas, for instance. Typical PX progression. Mouth (neat): much livelier, with chilli heat and a little sulphur, all almost explosive. Tonnes of very bitter, salty oranges and some currants. With water: it won’t sit still, moving between raisins, pepper, tobacco, salty sherry and green walnuts… Finish: very long, peppery and a little ‘dirty’, such is the force of the cask. Comments: very good, though hardly easy going. A bit of a war in your glass.
SGP:661 - 82 points.

Säntis 8 yo 2017/2025 (70.1%, OB for Whisky Picnic Bar, Switzerland, beer cask, cask #2578, 138 bottles)

Just imagine, a Swiss whisky for a bar in Taiwan. Might the world be on its way to solving all its problems through a bit of give and take between cultures, whether they belong to individuals or whole communities? All we need to do is get rid of a few corrupt populist autocrats and whisky will take care of the rest. Hey, why not? Colour: red amber. Nose: we’d forgotten just how wonderful Säntis could be. These stories about old casks that held peated beer sound a little, er, daft on paper, but in practice it works wonderfully. Even at 70% vol. Bear in mind, though, that what’s legal in Switzerland isn’t necessarily legal in the EU or further afield. With water: blowtorched walnuts. We love it. Mouth (neat): explosive, immensely powerful, and superb in its rough, very earthy, spicy way, with clove-studded oranges and pipe tobacco. With water: exceptional, with essential oils, botanical extracts (Swiss gentian, ha) and bitter chocolate. Finish: likewise. Ristretissimo coffee (is that a word?). Comments: we adore this rather unlikely stuff. And remember, at 70% vol. you’re getting almost two whiskies for the price of one.
SGP:372 - 90 points.

Tell you what, shall we go to Italy? We liked their first bottlings very much…

Exmu 2021/2024 (51.1%, OB for Milano Whisky Festival, Italy, 1st fill bourbon, cask #20100-020, 135 bottles)

And here we are back in Sardinia, with another expression we really ought to have tasted much sooner. When we go back to Italy, I suspect we’ll have to say 20 Our Fathers and 40 Hail Marys… Right at the border! Colour: gold. Nose: lovely fermentary notes, with beer, mirabelle plum tart, quince and white grapes. Let’s say Vermentino. With water: little fruit sweets, all very classic. Still a touch of barley eau-de-vie. Mouth (neat): simple but excellent, lemons, barley, lemons, barley, lemons, barley and a little green apple. A very faint Muscat note. With water: back come the little fruit sweets. Finish: medium in length, fresh, taut, precise and lemony. Comments: I haven’t checked, but I believe Sardinia is one of the great homes of citrus. An excellent little young Exmu.
SGP:641 - 86 points.

Come on, let’s cross the Atlantic…

Off-brand Nordic Red Berry Gummies ‘Release #18’ (63.9%, Sons of Vancouver, Canada, 421 bottles, 2026)

Pure rye and a concept every bit as admirably deviant as that of their cousins out east, the Québécois band Angine de Poitrine. That’s right. Colour: gold. Nose: fresh wood, toasted grain, roasted buckwheat and plain old rye bread. With water: same again, much the same in fact, with the roasted buckwheat a little further forward. Mouth (neat): there are the promised gummies, along with rye and pepper, amber ale, IPA and orange zest… With water: pure rye whisky. It’s true that they make it all over the world and that it’s often very good, but it can also be rather similar from one place to the next, so it probably makes sense to focus on local drinkers. Rye isn’t quite so simple! Finish: long and precise, on rye, pepper and citrus. Comments: excellent, and it earns a fine place among the now countless ryes of the world.
SGP:651 - 86 points.

Let’s end this infernal romp in the United Kingdom…

London Distillery Company ‘New Forms’ (60.7%, OB, England, single malt, ex-bourbon, cask #11190, 222 bottles, 2026)

We know this baby had a twelve-month finish, though we don’t know its total age. Does it really matter? Don’t we forgive young distilleries everything? Colour: gold. Nose: assorted little Haribo sweets (again) and sweet barley. And candied angelica, and Tagada strawberry sweets. Let’s say it’s very pretty, though I believe hundreds of distilleries around the world have been making this style for two years, or eight. With water: much the same. Mouth (neat): fresh and fruity, with a pronounced whack of cinnamon chewing gum and Juicy Fruit. Wrigley’s power! Boomers of all genders should love it. With water: still on fruit liqueurs, sweet cinnamon and little fruit sweets. The sort they give you at hotel reception desks the world over to keep you happy while you wait. Finish: likewise, fruit sweets and so on. Comments: very good.
SGP:641 - 83 points.

With all this progress around the globe, we do end up wondering whether an awful lot of distilleries, from Vladivostok to Vancouver (going east), aren’t now making more or less the same whisky.

And we insist on this rainy 11th of November, as the great Nick Lowe would say (cheers, Nick M.!), “What’s So Funny ’Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?”

Check the index of all world whiskies we've tasted