Special #23 & Canada Exclusive | 51.63% & 48.02%

Taking Advantage of Opportunities

A lucky work trip and a very welcoming email exchange later, I arrive at what is, probably, my favourite distillery.

Why probably? Well it’s hard to nail down just one distillery as your “stuck on an island whisky”, especially if you’re not actually in that predicament. Faced with the depth and breadth of whiskies available to us in this fortunate day and age, and writing this from the comfort of my home rather than fending off pesky crabs or naming a volleyball Wilson, I’d be hard pressed to pick just one. But if you were to rephrase the question to “what’s your one whisky/distillery that continues to feature in your Top 3 across your entire time drinking whisky”? Now that’s a proper question, and that answer would be Millstone Dutch whisky made by Zuidam Distillers for me.

Back to this work trip thingy. After travelling from Canada to the Netherlands, and working for three days in Boxtel, I worked my way to the small little town of Baarle-Nassau, population ~7,000, via a set of trains and buses with my rolling bag in tow.

Traversing the beautiful and very flat rural Dutch countryside, with my bus winging between stops adjacent to crop and cattle fields, I didn’t really know where I was going. However, the Dutch public transportation app is epic for a foreigner travelling by public transportation. Seriously, it’s awesome and coming from a country with an infantile public transportation system in comparison, it was quite a treat.

Couple the general travelling solo with limited cell data thing with the dashed lines on Google maps that are reportedly duplicated on the streets of Baarle-Nassau and prompts of “carry your passport if travelling here” owing to the town being bisected by the Dutch/Belgium border, I was mildly worried about where I was going considering this was midday and I was travelling the opposite direction from my hotel in Amsterdam some 2.5 hours away according the transportation app. Oh well, I’m quite confident I can work myself out of any situation so this was a minor niggle in the back of my mind.

At the time, I don’t know how I managed to pry myself into getting a “tour” of Millstone only about three weeks in advance of my trip however after meeting Patrick van Zuidam, I can confidently say it wasn’t the invisible Dramface business card or Canadian charm but rather Patrick being a very welcoming superstar of a person. He genuinely cares about the products he makes and the whisky industry as a whole.

That was immediately evident when I met up with Earie, who took the afternoon off work and drove to meet me at Zuidam distillery, and Patrick sat us down in his office to just chat amongst the numerous shelves of official Millstone whiskies and sample bottles and vials strewn about. No pressure, no schedule, no fluff. Just honest discussions and a willingness to share everything and anything. Suffice to say we lapped it all up.

So why no pictures Broddy? Despite hauling my camera gear across the Atlantic Ocean and multiple trains and buses to the distillery, I kept them in my bag. Blasphemy, I know, but hear me out.

Zuidam Distillery is not setup as a bustling and hustling centre, for it doesn’t have a liquor license so cannot sell directly from the distillery nor does it have a visitor centre. When Earie and I arrived, the front door was locked. A quick universal language gesture from someone inside told us to come around back. Letting ourselves in the back door, we practically stepped right into Patrick’s office after walking past the diminutive and archaic set of stills bracing his office doorway. We later learned that those stills were the original stills Patrick learned to distill on when he was a kid, including singeing his arm hair off when he was reaching under them to light the direct fired burners. Ya, they’re that kind of family.

It’s an administrative looking building and functions perfectly as such, nestled amongst surrounding light commercial and industrial buildings. Despite shattering his knee a few months earlier, Patrick led us on a personalized tour. Now I had the opportunity to grab my camera from the bag and tote it around, but it was the open, informal, and friendliness that prompted me to keep it tucked away. This was all about Patrick sharing little nuances and tidbits with us and not Broddy sticking his camera somewhere the sun doesn’t shine. I didn’t even take any phone pictures!

It just wasn’t the vibe and I was happy for it. Regardless, the visit is ingrained in my memory in vivid IMAX and smell-o-vision anyways so you’ll just have to use your imagination!

Patrick was the most welcoming host you could hope for… the whole thing very much felt like a conversation rather than two tourists being given the run of the mill (no pun intended) tour.

Earie Argyle

Patrick shared with us his farming practices that he utilizes to maximize the barley’s flavour potential during fermentation, how they’ve tried to expand their footprint and move into a more traditional distillery where a visitor centre could be built and the associated struggles with all manners of opposing forces, and how they still use windmills to grind a portion of their grains. Although admittedly, the grinding is a painstaking process, having to hand carry 25 kg sacks of grain to and from the windmill does make it a bit of a chore, so it’s understandable the windmill method isn’t exclusively used.

Fellow Canadian Aengus and I are teaming up on a joint review of Millstone’s 100 Rye whisky which is made using exclusively windmill milled rye grain so stay tuned for that. Even taking us through his discussions with the owners of Forsyth’s for his custom shaped stills, including a fairly trick piece of gadgetry used in the wash still (I didn’t ask Patrick if that tidbit could be shared, so I’ll keep it suspenseful) that gives them more flexibility in the stripping run wash makeup and is easier to clean to boot. Given he had shattered his knee a few months prior and had only regained his unassisted mobility that week, Patrick ably ambled around and showed us all manner of unique items throughout the operation, dropping knowledge bombs here and there and letting Earie and I hang out. It was incredibly relaxing and unforced.

While I was incredibly impressed with the overall operation, Patrick’s generosity and attitude were only matched by one thing; that smell of the warehouse. Going through the double fire-safe rollup door, Earie and I were engulfed by a thick, dense, and powerful tsunami of oxidised sherry goodness. We hadn’t gotten more than 15 paces in the warehouse and Earie and I shared a look of amazement, daring not to ruin the moment with unnecessary words. I’ve been through a few warehouses but none have had the same olfactory assault that this one warehouse, of Millstone’s three locations, had on our senses. It shrouded us, engulfing our bodies, overwhelming our senses, and cementing that location for all time in our mind. If I could sum it up; Intoxicating. Rich. Unique. Dense.

Spoiler alert, that’s generally how I describe Millstones.

Review 1/3

Millstone Special #23 7yo, Pedro Ximenez Cask Strength, Release: 3360 bottles, Distilled: 12.5.14, Bottled: 15.9.21, 51.63% ABV

$120CAD / £70

Millstone releases these “Special” releases periodically throughout the year, bottled with whatever spirit is ready at the time and is showing to be exceptional. Bottle outturns are usually around the 3,000 bottle size, large enough that many markets will get a few cases each. This Special #23 is no different, disgorged from a handful of PX sherry butts and vatted together at cask strength. Around 40% of Millstone whiskies satisfy the local markets and the remaining 60% gets sent to international markets.

Nose

Brown sugar. Treacle. Mounds of cinnamon. Cooked raisins, plums, and dates. Orange peel. Maybe some fudginess? It’s densely sweet and refined. Highly oxidized with dark and fuzzy notes and not the typical bright and fresh sherry influence that’s common these days.

Palate

Beautifully soft and full entry. Orange oil, milk chocolate, cooked fruit leathers, touch of raisins but it’s far from a dominant note, vanilla pods. Dark, rich, savoury spice cake. Buttery mouthfeel. The oxidized tones carry from the nose and it’s a cask driven experience, but what a cask! Syrupy sweetness coats your mouth and the %ABV tingle is that of a 40-43% whisky. A dangerously drinkable dessert.

A few drops of water reduces the density on the palate and makes this brighter, with more brighter citrus and fruits coming up.

The Dregs

Trust Millstone for your sherry bombs of sherry bombs. People that claim to love sherried whiskies but have yet to try a heavily sherried Special release from Millstone have yet to experience the extent of the sherry flavours imparted onto whisky. Like your Glenallachie, Glendronach, or similar “bombs”? Then try a nuke on for size with a Millstone. You might not like it, which is fair and each to their own, but I’ll wager you’ll learn a thing or two and come away with a better appreciation of sherried whiskies. Go find one if you can, you won’t be disappointed.

Score: 7/10

Review 2/3

Millstone 3 yo Heavy Peated PX, Canada Exclusive, Distilled: 22.03.19, Bottled: 25.07.22, 48.02% ABV

$100CAD / £59 | 174 bottles - Now Sold Out

While visiting Patrick at the distillery, I asked him about the background on this release.

Canada, by which I mean the province of Alberta because we don’t have government-mandated liquor conglomerates stifling our souls, generally laps up all manner of interesting whiskies, including being the single largest export market for Benromach single casks as reported by Richard Urquhart himself, so it’s not a surprise that we get bespoke bottlings.

We’ve even had a few exclusive Millstones, including the 1996 American Oak release I debuted on Dramface with. But this was a unique one. A 3 yo peated whisky this dark? And a very small outturn at 174 bottles meant some interesting barrel sizes and potentially flavours were at play here. A quick chat with my local brick-and-mortar store folks, who have a good relationship with my local Millstone importers Greg and Jarka Winters, and I learned of the story of the casks and the future releases coming our way. So seizing the opportunity, I picked Patrick’s brain on this exclusive release.

Amongst his last shipment of 30+ yo leaky and distorted, but oh so delicious, sherry barrels from a bodega, there were several extra stowaways made from really old wood.

There were 5 of these tiny, little, stupid-sized barrels amongst the other barrels (ex-bodega butts).

-Patrick van Zuidam

Being a proper Dutchman and not looking a gift horse in the mouth (and after checking if the barrels were not bad), Patrick filled all five of these barrels with peated new make. Our local importer/distributor is working with Patrick to release the remaining four casks of this same spirit in sequential order and at one year increments. How cool is that?

I’m giddy looking forward to sampling these at successive time increments in the future. I’ll have to bottle a few samples of this and seal them tight to make sure this youngin’ doesn’t adversely change with the open bottle effect several years down the line.

Earie and I had the opportunity to smell the peated low wines (aptly called the first distillate in Netherlands) from Millstone. The smell was delicious and already clean, fruity, and roundly smoky at the ~22 %ABV mark, the link between the low wines and Millstone’s peated whiskies is clearly evident at this stage.

Nose

The sweetness of the nose hides the peated nature of this beast. Orange and red fruit leathers, moist leather chairs (not the dry dusty kind), “brown” umami-like savouriness, and cinnamon sticks. Cooked raisins in a mince pie. Brown sugar. Undertones of wet earthy peat hide under the sweet nose.

Palate

The umami-like qualities are back, providing a lovely double helix with the sweeter notes. Raisins, brown sugar, butter tarts, and a savoury aspect that reminds me of a heavily reduced balsamic glaze. I catch fleeting dried peaches and apricots between sips, a direct descendant of the fruity first distillate/low wines we smelled from the tote. Super cool to see that continue through here. The smoke is very gentle and only appears on the latter half, letting the sweet sherry lead the way. It’s a wet, earthy peat smoke, almost like a mix of burning wet sticks and moss rather than anything Islay-like, which makes sense given the mainland peat used during the malting process.

The mouthfeel is more akin to a sweet and sticky glaze on your favourite dish than a whisky. It coats your teeth, gums, and lips and clings for a far longer time than it should given its diminutive age.

The Dregs

I wish I had bought a backup bottle. After cracking this and enjoying it, I waited to go back to my local store. I had purchased other bottles in the meantime and had exhausted my whisky funds so I smartly didn’t tease myself by stepping back into the store. A few months later and funds recovered, I wandered back in to find the bottles were gone. No backups for Broddy then!

Before I hand this review off, and if you’re ever reading this Patrick, you’re an absolute legend for taking the time to lead Earie and I around and share all the information you did in an incredibly friendly manner.

So wanting to bring you another opinion, and a lucky travelling mule had some luggage space to the UK earlier this year, I bottled up a sample to our Dougie Crystal for his thoughts. I believe this is his first Millstone so I’m excited to hear his thoughts.

Score: 7/10

Review 3/3 - Dougie

Millstone 3 yo Heavy Peated PX, Canada Exclusive, Distilled: 22.03.19, Bottled: 25.07.22, 48.02% ABV

$100CAD / £59 | 174 bottles - Now Sold Out

A phalanx of samples arrived through the post one day, from the other side of the world, full of things I’d never heard of before - Great Plains, Grain Henge, Shelter Point and Millstone. When Broddy sends samples, he sends samples.

Millstone - I assumed it was Canadian, but it turns out to be Dutch. No more digging was done - the flavour experience begins.

Nose

Bright and coastal - creels on the wind. Burnt sugar. Burnt Umber. Farmy notes. Spirit. Fresh coastal air - slightly salty. Cedar wood. Linseed oil burnished on a lathe. Dusty oil paint box. Oh a lovely savoury thing - chicken cashew.

Water evens it all out to a steady state - mid-reds threaded with black.

Palate

Saturated spongy tiramisu or granny’s trifle - sweet sharp - bits of fruit soaked in cream sherry. Very christmassy. A fantastic earthiness to the peat in the palate. Low brown earth notes. Tiffin with sharp cherries. Has a lovely savoury thread - soy sauce or even balsamic vinegar.

Water kills the joo joo - far more enjoyable when left eu-natural.

The Dregs

The overwhelming experience with this was a robust, saturated, boldly flavourful young whisky with oodles of trifle notes, creamy and sharp at the same time.

It’s almost like digging down through the layers of the trifle - cream on top, into the custard, down into fruity jelly with wee gritty pieces that always make you wince, then down further into the dense sherry soaked sponge. It’s got the bright fresh woody scents of freshly cut cedar, but that linseed oil note comes through too - a sharper, burnished oil scent that I remember from when I used to turn pens on a wee lathe. It’s trees; pine needles in the damp woods just after rain, the earthiness coming through nicely on the palate. It’s not hot, no Sir. It starts off almost too sweet and bright, then tapers off to a more souring finish in a pleasing, earthy balanced way.

A really good dram this. It does tend to fall over into sour after a while of sipping, but keeps just enough on the balanced side to not become cloying or overly thick.

Score: 7/10 DC

Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. BB

Other opinions on this:

Whiskybase (special Release #23 7yo Peated PX)

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