Rye rye whisky brownies

Juuri unaged rye whisky is the star of the show in these brownies. It's distilled by Kyrö Distillery Company in my birth place in Isokyrö, Finland. I've written about these guys a few times before and just can't get enough of their products. In the meanwhile their range has grown and I can't keep up tasting everything and introducing it here. Luckily in August I will be going to Finland again and should get a chance to sample a few of their products. The title of the post is a reference to the distillery's products and marketing, as they often use the “rye rye” thing.

For the recipe itself I took guidance from Waitrose's Chocolate and Whisky Brownie Cake, but have posted my own version below. I added some rye flour to the recipe as well to make it double rye with the whisky. I wanted to make sure that I'll get a nice and dense texture for the brownie and thought it's best to take some advice from other recipes. Here's how I made the brownies.

Ingredients

Brownie dough

150 g dark baking chocolate

150 g butter

2 eggs

250 g sugar

50 g rye flour

75 g wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

Other ingredients

50 ml Juuri unaged rye whisky

300 ml double cream + 1 tbsp sugar + 2 tsp whisky

Handful of fresh raspberries

Vanilla ice-cream

Method

Melt the chocolate and butter in a water bath.

Whisk the eggs with the sugar.

Add the cooled chocolate and butter mix to the eggs and sugar.

Carefully add the flour and baking powder and mix into a dough.

Line a baking tin with baking paper and grease it. I baked mine in a 27 x 17 cm rectangular baking tin.

Bake at 180 C for about 35 minutes. The dough should be a bit soft in the inside, which you can test with a skewer.

Let rest in the tin for 15 minutes after the baking.

Remove from the tin and pour the whisky on the top.

Let rest for at least 10 minutes and then cut into squares.

Serve the brownies with whipped whisky flavoured cream, vanilla ice-cream and fresh raspberries.

Enjoy!

I'm entering the recipe to the We should cocoa challenge. It's hosted this month by Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe and co-hosted by Choclette from Tin and Thyme. This month's theme is malt, which got me curious and thinking of some nice combinations. I was certain that the maltiness to my recipe would come from either beer or whisky, but went with whisky in the end. It was nice to be baking for a change.

Have a nice week!

Your VegHog

Teerenpeli Single Malt Whisky

Do you still remember Teerenpeli from a recent post of mine, a Finnish restaurant chain with proud range of own beers, ciders and whiskies? Back then I promised to write something more on their products. Now I feel that the suitable time has arrived to write about their single malt whisky, as the days are growing bleaker and the nights darker. Also the weekend is soon here - good times!

I have been very much into whisky lately, which quite surprises me, and I was happy to have some of this Teerenpeli product left. So here are my thoughts on the Teerenpeli Single Malt Whisky 43 %. It's a 8 years old whisky and quite smooth in general. There is a slight smoke flavour in the foretaste. The aftertaste contains sweeter components, such as vanilla and caramel. Finally there is a really strong earthy taste in the aftertaste, pretty much like tar. I know that flavour well, as Finns often flavour sweets with tar.

Try it, if you'll ever get the chance!

Distillery tour at Kyrö Distillery Company

This weekend I had the pleasure to go on a tour through the premises of the Kyrö Distillery Company. You can read my first post here about the distillery that is a reasonably new venture in the village where I was born. The company is distilling whisky and gin in the old dairy building of Isokyrö. There also is a bar and restaurant Kyrönmaan Matkailun Edistämiskeskus offering the own products and various fine drinks made with them and named after local places. They are normally open on a first Saturday of each month and sometimes for special occassions.

The annual 18th Century Market was taking place in Isokyrö town centre this weekend, so the distillery and bar were open for three days frequently offering distillery tours. The tour is very much worth taking, as it was very informative and also amusing. On the tour we heard how whisky is made there and what makes it so special in comparison to other whiskies and methods. There was also a brief introduction to the local history and heritage, to which the distillery wants to be closely attached. The font they use on their branding comes from a local war memorial and the font of their new "seal of approval" comes from the wall paintings of the local medieval church. Also the seal with the bottle is a similar image to the coat of arms of Isokyrö, which shows a bear with a fir tree.

After the tour we tasted pretty much all products of the distillery, some of which I wasn't familiar with yet. I haven't been able to obtain the new products yet, so now was the perfect opportunity to taste them. Verso is the more matured version of Juuri. It's a sprout of whisky as the name suggests and has been matured for 4 months. It is already much smoother than Juuri and has strong rye flavour to it.

Then there was a new gin variation, Koskue, which also tastes very pleasant with rye notes and hints of fine botanicals. We also tried Helsingin, which I think had a bit more juniper flavours and less other spices, and the name is very inspired (Helsinki in its possessive form contains the word gin).

The distillery recently won the trophy for the best gin & tonic decided by the IWSC, and luckily for us, the winning drink was served at the bar. Napue Tonic contains Napue gin, Fever Tree Indian tonic, cranberries and rosemary, and it truly is an excellent drink. I will have to try recreating it once I'm back in England.

One of my favourite alcoholic drinks is Lonkero, or the grey gold of the north as I call it, a Finnish mix drink of gin and grapefruit lemonade. Of course the bar served the lonkero of the house containing Napue gin and I obviously had to have some of those, and it was of course better than any odd Lonkero.

Needless to say how great it was to visit the distillery and bar again! I'm hoping it won't be quite another year until I can go there again, but if it is, I will surely try out the quirky Zetor ride then. I can only recommend a visit there, if you'll ever have the chance.

Your VegHog

 

 

Kyrö Distillery Company – Going back to the roots

I was born in the small town of Isokyrö in western Finland in the late 1970s and spent most of my childhood and youth there. The main trade of this quiet place is agriculture, but now unheard things are happening: a whisky distillery, Kyrö Distillery Company, has been founded there! I was very excited when my mum told me these news in June. She had even cut out a local newspaper article for me about the distillery (because that's how they still do it in those parts of the world!).

Even the building where the distillery is located has fond memories for me. That place is none other than the old dairy building of Isokyrö. They used to produce Oltermanni cheese there, which I'm pretty much obsessed with. My grandparents had cows that produced milk for making that cheese. In the early 21^st century Valio moved the Oltermanni production away from Isokyrö and I claim that after that the taste of Oltermanni slightly changed. And it looks like it wasn't just my imagination, as back then Valio even confirmed to me in an email conversation that the taste can be different when the cheese is produced elsewhere – such shocking revelations!

Anyway, there is no longer need for bitterness about Oltermanni's sad departure from Isokyrö as the dairy building has now been put to good use by the Kyrö Distillery Company. They distil rye whisky, which is first of its kind in Finland. A 100% rye whisky, like they make it, is a rare thing even on a global scale. Finns like putting rye pretty much everywhere, but surprisingly a pure rye whisky hasn't been made there before. The five founders of Kyrö Distillery Company say that the idea of making rye whisky struck them in the sauna, and that is the very place where many successful Finnish ventures have started! 

Every time I visit Finland I go to Isokyrö to see family, and when I had my last holiday in August, I got really lucky as the distillery pub was open for the public. I already wrote a post about the 18th century market in Isokyrö, and during that market the distillery had opened the pub and organised tastings and viewings. Unfortunately I didn't have time to go on a tour or to the tastings, but for the next visit that's definitely on my list. These are still early days for the pub, but in the meanwhile it opens once a month, if I'm correctly informed. 

In the pub they served lovely fruity cocktails, long drinks and the real thing. I tasted Juuri (Root), which is the unaged rye whisky and I also had cocktails named after local places, such as “Perttilän Silta” and “Pukkilansaari” and long drink of the house. These were made of Juuri and the other product of the Kyrö Distillery Company, Napue Gin, which gets its name after the very village the distillery is situated in. There is a memorial of the Battle of Napue (1714) very close by and the typeface of that monument has been used to create the clean design of the Kyrö Distillery Company's products. They call it Napue Sans! I find the whole branding of the company to be very modern, but strongly mixed with tradition, and that's what makes it so appealing to me and surely to many others.

*These are old VegHog archive photos from the Battle of Napue memorial site taken 2011 and 2012.

You might know that I'm bit of a lightweight when it comes to hard booze, but of course I had to taste these products straight. On a normal day I might rather opt out for a cocktail. Here are a few tasting notes and other thoughts on these drinks.

Juuri – Like I mentioned above, Juuri is the unaged whisky and the first matured batch will be available in 2017, but it's in itself already a very accomplished drink.

Juuri tastes like eating toasted rye bread with honey. There are also some anise notes and hint of raisins and caramel.

Napue – For me a local gin was always going to be a very welcome drink as it is so versatile to use in cocktails and long drinks. Napue gin is also made of rye along with diverse fine botanicals. I read somewhere that it even contains sea-buckthorn, my favourite berry!

The rye smell hits you first, but the gin also has an initial smell of juniper and fresh botanicals. The foretaste is peppery, then berry and juniper tastes linger on the tongue. I think in the aftertaste I was able to get a hint of the sea-buckthorn, even if I might just have been imagining it. There is a strong rye taste throughout.

Now Master of Malt has both Juuri and Napue in their selection and they ship them almost everywhere in the world (check their page if your country is included). That means happy days for us expat Finns who can now get piece of home in the post. 

Thank you Kyrö Distillery Company for bringing a breath of fresh air to Isokyrö and good luck for the future! I'm sure I'll be seeing you soon.

Your VegHog