Festival review - Falkenberg Öl & Whiskymässa 2014
An unexpected journey
On Saturday 23 August 2014 my wife and I drove to Strömstad, just across the border into Sweden. This is about 90 minutes drive from where we live in Drammen, Norway. We were picking up whisky, of course. Yet another exclusive, only available in Sweden for now. Almost there, my wife turns to me and asks; "Hey, what if we just continue on to Falkenberg? There's a whisky festival there today." OK... We quickly check, and the GPS system says it's 'just' another 2 hours 40 minutes to get there from Strömstad. We can manage. Can we get there and back again this evening? Well, we arrived home from Japan 36 hours before, jetlag is still an issue. Not very tempting, but...
We decide to call our good friend Hasse Nilsson at Box Whisky. Are there tickets available? Sure, he can get us in, no problem. Check! Hmm, are there hotel rooms available? Hasse makes a couple of calls, then we're booked. Check! What the heck, let's go! This is the last weekend of our summer vacation.
We arrive at Falkenberg 15 minutes after they open. This is a two day festival, but the main action is on the Saturday. It's open from 1 pm till 10 pm. Plenty of time to meet friends, taste great whisky, and experience a festival we have not visited before.
It was so good to see so many friends there! This whole whisky business is such a social thing. It's like being part of a great, big, happy family. And we feel very welcome.
Good friends and good whisky
First off we met up with our friends at Box Whisky. Had to thank Hasse for the excellent service, Roger for the lovely whisky, and Thomas for being an allround great guy (and for getting me pen and paper for my whisky notes). Box had a great stand as always. Good to see that they now have whisky for sale, and not having to rely only on samples of 'proto whisky'. They have released two whiskys now, The Pioneer and The Festival (soon to ship to those that attended their summer festival this June).
Next we visited the lovely people at Whiskytaste Sweden. They have quite an impressive line-up for such a young company. We got to try a couple of interesting 17 YO blended malts from Hart Brothers; one port finish and one sherry finish. I really enjoyed the port finish! We also tried a Littlemill 1992 21 YO from Hart Brothers, port pipe matured. Lovely stuff.
Just around the corner another great importer, Clydesdale. Very nice and knowledgeable people running that shop, indeed. Here we had a Bunnahabhain 1990 21 YO from Berry Bros & Rudd, and a Clynelish 1997 16 YO from Blackadder. I often gravitate towards whiskies from these two distilleries, if I find something I have not tried before. It is usually very quaffable.
Bloggers, bloggers everywhere
In between this very serious testing of whisky, we met up with some fine Swedish whisky bloggers. Most of them we have met in real life bedfore, while others were only known to us previously through the wannabe matrix that is Facebook. Always good to meet up, share some stories and get to know each other better. Also great to be able to borrow chargers for mobile phones (thanks, Roland!). As mentioned at the start, this trip was not planned at all from our side. We had brought nothing with us, nothing at all!
More whisky!
Back to the whisky! We searched out Symposion. They have a massive stand as always, rivaled only by Clydesdale. This year Symposion celebrates 20 years of business, and they have three special bottlings to commemorate this occasion. We got to try one of them, a Springbank 1994 19 YO (almost 20 YO). I loved it! Magnus Fagerström also served a special treat. Thanks, Magnus!
Time then for our good friends at Svenska Eldvatten. These guys are just great. They are an independent bottler, with a pair of finely tuned noses. Their new offering this time was an Ardmore 2000 14 YO. A very interesting, peated Speyside whisky. Definitely well worth looking more into that distillery. I know too little about them. We also tried their Glen Moray 1991 22 YO.
Once more with feeling
By this time we were getting hungry. The festival also had a small cafeteria going, with a nice selection of food, reasonably priced. Then it was time for the bonus round. Drams were consumed at a much slower pace now, and more time was spent chatting.
We did try another few great whiskies though. Box Whisky The Festival, even more impressive than their The Pioneer. Paul John Peated Select Cask, a lovely whisky from India, served up by Whiskytaste Sweden. Finally a stunning Mortlach 1992 21 YO Director's Cut, presented by Tina Sundblom at Clydesdale.
Time to wrap this up
By this time we had made the round, several times, and we were getting tired from a long day. There were other exhibitors, of course, an impressive 46 different stand actually. But there is only so much we can get through in a day. The general impression of the festival was very good. There was plenty of room, no pushing and shoving. A large area with tables and chairs where we could relax, and finish our notes. There was a cafeteria, as mentioned, and a few of the stands actually served different kinds of meats, cheese, cakes and candies.
We heard several exhibitors expressing how pleased they were with the guys running the festival. They must really be doing something right. We got to meet one of the organizers, Fredrik Almryd. Great guy. He even arranged for his mom to take us back to the hotel. What great service!
The festival premiered last year, with about 1800 visitors over two days, and this year they increased that to 2400 visitors over the whole festival. Impressive numbers!
For us Falkenberg Öl & Whiskymässa 2014 was a very nice experience. I do believe we will be back next year, if we can. The dates are already set for next year's festival, August 22 and 23 2015.
Sláinte! - Thomas
