Box Early Days Collection The Challenger

One of the Ladies and myself had a Swedish whisky tasting some weeks ago. I wrote down some tasting notes of couple of the whiskies. One of them being Box Early Days Collection The Challenger. This is the second release from Box Distillery. I have already shared my tasting notes on The Pioneer (the first) and The Messenger (the fourth and last).

You can find all the details about The Challenger here (scroll down to find it). Some of the details are:

• 74% peated whisky (31 and 39 ppm) matured for 3.5 years in 40-litre Bourbon ‘Ankare’.
• 15% unpeated whisky matured for 3 years and 1 month in 40-litre Oloroso ‘Ankare’.
• 11% peated whisky (45ppm) matured for 3 years and 1 month in 40-litre Oloroso ‘Ankare’.
• The Challenger has neither been chill-filtered nor coloured.

It was distilled between 4 February and 4 October 2011 and bottled 6 and 7 November 2014. The alcohol level was adjusted to the 48,2 ABV during the bottling process. The outturn was 5 416 bottles.

I am tasting the whisky again today, alone, and I am adding some more to my notes from the last tasting:

Warm and fruity on the nose at first. Baked apples, and pears maybe. After nosing it for a while it turns more chemical with a hint of nail polish remover. The nose becomes oaky after tasting. It is like being in a warehouse. A distinct taste of canned pears on the palate. Quite young. It is salty, frizzy and smoky. Fresh licorice and warm on the finish. Ashes and a hint of smoke. It lingers on the palate with tingling feeling. In the very end it leaves the palate with the taste of a young whisky and nuts.

21 / 21 / 21 / 21 = 84

– Tone