‘HERESY’ SMALL BATCH DELIGHTS

Skooshy Stroopwafel

We’re starting the year with a new release from our ‘Heresy’ small-batch series, Batch 30: Skooshy stroopwafel. As Julien Willems reports, it’s a beautiful marriage of ex-bourbon hogsheads and European oak sherry butts that brings to mind a squirt of whipped cream on a Dutch (or even Belgian) caramel waffle

PHOTOS: DUNCAN GORMAN

It all started with bourbon hogsheads containing whiskies distilled on 8 April 2013 in the same Speyside distillery.

After finding their way to our warehouse, these casks remained there in quiet slumber until they were roused from their sleep in the early days of summer in 2021, as our diligent warehouse team proceeded to draw samples to check on their progress.

You’re unlikely to have missed the many releases from European and Spanish oak sherry hogsheads available in every Outturn over the past few years.

So, you have probably noticed that these hogshead-sized casks can be very active and super-charge the whisky with tannic, dark, chocolatey notes and can be as delicious as they are intense.

Here, however, the influence from the bourbon casks was so pleasant that we wanted to tread lightly. With double the volume of the active hogsheads I mentioned, sherry butts provide less contact between spirit and wood during maturation, yet still provide intensity and the delightful, sweet sherry notes we all know and love. The fact these casks were new to whisky at the time they were filled means that they would still provide fair woody notes too, but hopefully just enough to complement the sweet fruity Speyside whisky.

To our delight, after 32 months the whisky in each sherry butt ended up achieving remarkably close flavour characteristics, and we decided to combine them into one single malt bottling as a result. This expression showcases the delicious resinous sweetness of PX casks while mellowing out any individual quirks of each cask.

PICTURED: The Tasting Panel found “lotus biscuits with muscovado sugar, skooshy cream on a stroopwafel, all washed down with a pumpkin spiced frappuccino”

Nosing and tasting Skooshy stroopwafel evoked childhood memories that had been filed away for the longest time. There it was: the low, heavy, grey sky and the local fair, on the outskirts of Antwerp. The food stalls served (among numerous other treats that would have your GP up in arms) a type of freshly baked thin waffle, split horizontally and filled with a sugar candy syrup infused with orange blossom. This Lacquemant waffle, as it is called, is served warm, and you’re better off having it on the spot if you know what’s good for you…unless you don’t care about the syrup leaking everywhere.

While this is my own take on some of the aromas, the Society’s Tasting Panel seemed to concur, finding “lotus biscuits with muscovado sugar, skooshy* cream on a stroopwafel, all washed down with a pumpkin spiced frappuccino”.

I’ll leave you to compare notes on the influence of sherry butts compared to that of hogsheads on additionally matured whisky, but it seems to me that they achieved what they were supposed to: bringing sherry notes and woodiness to complement a very enjoyable, fruity Speyside distillate.

So this January, with days short and the festive festivities behind us, whether or not you feel like you need a pick-me-up, Batch 30: Skooshy stroopwafel is one of those drams that’ll keep the chill away on rainy days and will equally really do wonders on nights you’re looking for a no fuss dram with heft and generosity…a no-brainer of sorts.

* Scottish term for whipped cream squirted from a pressurised canister, often directly into the mouth when no-one’s looking