From Scotland to Smögen, With Love

Distilled spends 36 hours on the Swedish seaside exploring Smögen, the next cult whisky most will never get to taste.

Words by Angus MacRaild
Photography by Andrew Colvin

West Sweden is a land of greenery, rock and woodland; brightness and rain – Scottishly so. Driving north from Gothenburg it is easy to imagine being in Scotland with the edgy breeze threatening to tip over into rain at any moment, against a busy grey tundra of sky. To a Scot it’s a rare familiarity far from home.

Sweden itself becomes more pronounced upon arrival in Bohuslän, the northernmost province along its western seaboard, boasting an archipelago of eight thousand islands and skerries. The wood-panelled houses that line the waterfront often spill outwards into the sea, with jetties and docks enjoying a gentle tide in slate-like calm, sheltered by jutting granite further out. It is a soothing place, carved into the coast of a country so often accused of uniformity, where identity has been slowly hollowed out, an oft-touted platitude that grasping British commentators are fond of spouting. But to me there is a pleasing sense of national character in the architecture, as much as in the tenement housing of Glasgow, or the skinny apartment blocks that deck the canals of Amsterdam. It is the physical accent of a culture. Quite predictably meals here are similarly reminiscent of the west coast of Scotland, with an abundance of seafood that tantalises in its fresh simplicity, served in the many fiskehus that dot the coastline, their outdoor tables echoing of gusto and merriment late into nights that are dark and full of bluster. It is yet more proof that the reality of Sweden lies, like all countries, in its people, with their abundant character, zingy humour and appetite for life. It also points to just what a natural pairing Sweden and whisky truly are.

To those who already know of Pär Caldenby and his decades-long passion for Scotch whisky, it hardly comes as a surprise to learn that he has single-handedly built a distillery and made every last drop of whisky himself. The author of the well-known and respected Enjoying Malt Whisky is, after all, a lawyer by trade, and reading his opus it is not difficult to see the natural eye he possesses for detail and scrutiny.

The book is rich in minutiae and passionate opinion, but also exudes a sense of purposeful clutter, as if every possible aspect of his gathered whisky knowledge has been crammed into what was always a finite space. In this sense the book is very much a forerunner to the distillery itself.

Discussing over tea and toast the origins of his distillery, Smögen, and his love of whisky, Pär confesses that he was first seduced by Johnnie Walker Red Label, “funny enough. And then I bought a bottle of Auchentoshan 10 Year Old and I liked that even more.” He presents this as a common truth, a natural and sequential ascension from simple blend to potent malt that the majority of whisky lovers take. He is courteous and thoughtful in conversation, although quick to laugh with a glimmer of schoolboy glee in his humour. It’s an interesting juxtaposition to the more lawyerly aspects of his character, swift to point out what he sees as ineptitude or foolishness, and surgical in its deconstruction. “I’m really bad at coping with stupid people,” Pär later admits with a slight grin, “and I’m not that good at marketing as I have a tendency to be a straight talker.”

But coping with stupidity, one quickly learns, is a central part of being a commercial distiller in Sweden. For a nation that seems a natural haven for the production and enjoyment of whisky, its creation comes against all bureaucratic odds, and in spite of the State’s best efforts to hobble it. The sale of alcohol here is strictly regulated courtesy of Systembolaget, the government agency that maintains a monopoly on the retailing, distribution and promotion of alcohol, in many ways the embodiment of socialism’s failures to an outsider’s eye, with its sterile retail spaces that all but actively discourage any interest in its wares. “You’ve heard the joke ‘no sex please, we’re British?‘ Here it’s ‘no alcohol please, we’re Swedish.’”

Pär goes on to explain that producers and importers in Sweden are forbidden from marketing any product with an alcohol content above 15% – not in print or other media. In Pär’s own words, “it’s beyond stupid!” but it’s a system which he has managed to circumvent thanks to cask sales, tastings, whisky festivals – and the clever strategy of including sixty shareholders in the distillery, all of whom are whisky enthusiasts. “It was a way of building a customer database and network of brand ambassadors from the start,” Pär reveals. “It’s not a financial investment for them but a way of sharing the passion for whisky. You cannot share a passion with capital investors – I know this from my legal work in dispute resolution.” New releases of Smögen sell out within minutes when listed on Systembolaget’s website, so it would appear that Pär’s business acumen is paying dividends.

Given that legal distilling of any type exists in Sweden in spite of its own government makes visiting Smögen all the more illuminating. Named for a nearby fishing hamlet turned summer resort, the distillery was  established in 2010 on a family homestead previously used for dairy cattle.

Entering what would pass for a barn elsewhere reveals two very small, dirty copper pot stills from Forsyths of Rothes in Speyside, sitting at one end of a room not much bigger than a large garage. At 900 litres the spirit still is a miniature of what you would find at Bunnahabhain though Pär confesses that, “my inspiration is Lagavulin.”

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