Whisky Stories // 24 hours at the Kyrö Distillery, Finland
So, here’s the thing. It takes a special kind of trust to allow a ‘freakishly tall and weird Belgian guy’ (not my words) to roam around the distillery grounds when staff is either on holiday or still working from home. It takes a special kind of stupid to then accidentally trigger an alarm at said distillery because you’re returning borrowed bottles to the visitor’s center. My first couple of hours at the Kyrö distillery were eventful!
Text by Mickaël Van Nieuwenhove
Photography is © Kuvio.com and © Mickaël Van Nieuwenhove
One of the newest releases is the “Wood Smoke”, and it’s perfect for snowy photography!
If you’re wondering how on earth I pulled off to be able to wander around the Kyrö distillery virtually all by myself, I first have to take you back a bit. This is not the first time I visited the Temple of Rye. A couple of years ago, I basically told my buddy Asgeir – who then worked as the Belgian brand ambassador for Kyrö – that I was going to Finland and maybe wanted to visit the distillery. I liked the brand and I had tasted a couple of their products. During that trip, the people at the distillery welcomed me with open arms. If you’d like to find out what my impressions were, click here.
So when I finally found some time to travel again after a grueling 2 years of hard work and no play, I reached out to my friends at Kyrö again. I was more than welcome to swing by and could even spend the night at their guest house. Together with a Finnish friend, we made plans to drive from Helsinki to Isokyrö – a 5,5h drive – visit the distillery and surrounding nature, spend the night, and then head back around noon the day after. Basically, 24 hours to delve deep into the Kyrö spirit.
The ‘big black barn’ is one of the warehouses Kyrö owns. There’s a visual secret that you can only appreciate if you go there and touch the building.
But that idyllic plan needed some adjustment. The day before we left, Miko – one of the owners – informed me that he was feeling sick, and couldn’t make it to the distillery to show us around. Safety and well-being first! We were also told that Asgeir – who is now working at the distillery itself – was not available either. We set out anyway, because we knew we’d have a good time regardless of meeting up with my friends there. After having arrived, Asgeir simply showed us to the guest house and sent out a distillery-wide message that there were going to be two people roaming the distillery grounds, and that maybe ‘we shouldn’t be shown the door’.
Truth be told, I felt a bit lost at that point. I wasn’t entirely comfortable just walking around and popping my head into various rooms and halls, all because I was allowed to. But that feeling quickly vanished when we unpacked. A beautiful guest house, a fully stocked fridge and sample bar, comfy beds, a sauna, and even my own slippers! 24 hours of whisky talks, photoshoots, dinner, and late-night tasting sessions. And I basically had a hall pass!
The distillery is located on the grounds of an old dairy cooperative going all the way back to 1908.
With sunset rapidly approaching – middle of Finland at the end of February – we first visited the storage area and visitor’s center’s bar to borrow a couple of bottles for a photoshoot in the snow-covered forest surrounding the distillery. Again, the staff was exceptionally helpful. Jonna, who is in charge of the visitor’s center’s stock allowed us to ‘borrow’ any bottles on two conditions: 1) if they’re closed, don’t open them and 2) don’t drop or lose the bottles. That part of the plan worked out without any hiccups. While looking for the best backgrounds and the most ideal rays of sunlight, we also visited the warehouse where the whisky barrels are stored: a big black barn. This is a mysterious building from the outside, a Walhalla of whisky if the door is open and you’re allowed inside. For now, the gates remained closed.
While we were racing against the light, we also visited the Napue monument, remembering a battle between the Swedish Empire and the Tsardom of Russia that was fought on the 19th of February 1714. More on that battle here. It is so significant to the area that Kyrö decided to name one of its gins after it, before it was re-named to “Kyrö Gin”.
The Napue monument, partially covered in snow. There’s poetic significance to it all.
It was 4.30pm, and most of the people had already left the distillery, but we were told we could just drop off the bottles at the bar. One open door later, we triggered the alarm. A little panicked, we called the Kyrö people and soon all was well again. Time to prepare for dinner, followed by sauna and an extensive tasting session.
After dinner, we jumped in the sauna. Not much to be said about that, besides that the sauna was nice and hot and the snow was absurdly cold AND rock hard. No rolling around to cool down for us… While we were having sauna, we did enjoy multiple Longkyrö longdrinks, which are available in 3 varieties: blueberry, ginger, and cranberry. D&D. Delicious and Dangerous. But we were deceived, for another bottle was gifted by Asgeir, a new release in the Gin & Juice line: Rhubarb, containing the Kyrö Gin, strawberries, lingonberries, and fresh rhubarb juice. That crazy Viking Teddy knows his stuff!
Back in the guesthouse, we ran into Kalle, one of the owners of the distillery and the head-distiller, who had just started his holiday. There’s true passion involved if you decide to spend your holidays at your own distillery, even if you’re taking it as a base camp for cross-country skiing. Together with him, we sampled a lot of Kyrö whiskies, some of which should not be mentioned in this blog post. I’ll dedicate a specific blog post to all of the products we tasted. For now, let me just tell you that we tasted wonderful things, and we both made the correct call to go to bed not too late into the night. The morning after would bring more photography and a long drive back to Helsinki.
I woke up rather early, around 8 am, and decided to go for a morning walk around the distillery grounds. People were starting to come in, and I had a chat with Sanni from the ABW (all but whisky) team about distillery life. Spoiler: it involves strong coffee to start the day. Next, I saw a guy driving around casks. Because I have no shame and I’m very inquisitive, I talked to him as well. Tommi is a nice guy, passionate about casks. Well, he should be, since he’s the master of barrels! I caught up with him again a bit later in the day when we visited the ‘black barn’, one of the warehouses owned by Kyrö, and the closest one to the distillery. The master of barrels is in charge of all casks coming in, and he personally waterproofs all barrels that come in. I know the photos don’t really give you a sense of how beautiful the inside of the warehouse is, but let me tell you I enjoyed seeing row after row after row of casks maturing the rye distillate.
To most people, casks. To me: promises.
After taking a couple more pictures of the distillery and bottles, it was time to visit the merch shop. T-shirts, sweaters, gift boxes, honey, caramel sauce, BBQ sauce, mustard, jewelry, longdrinks,… All are available for purchase. Sadly, due to Finnish laws, you can’t actually buy their gins or whiskies at the distillery itself, but you can buy drams! And for those of you who might be stressing about where to find their products: in Finland, you’ll find them at Alko, the state-controlled alcohol chain, but I did see the lower ABV longdrinks pop up at supermarkets too. For all of you who can’t make it to Finland: their web shop is also up and running, and their markets are expanding!
After we said our goodbyes, we visited Miko for a quick chat. Awesome guy. I hope you get to meet him at least once in your life. He can tell you all about the history of the area and the distillery, and his story starts right after the last ice age…
We got in the car, and drove off. Along the way, we stopped for ice cream. Spring had arrived in Finland, but the Finns rather talk about “Fool’s Spring”, followed by “Second Winter”. Still, it’s pretty absurd to have ice cream at 2° C. Then again, there’s no danger of it melting too soon. Absurd? Maybe. But in a pleasant way.
“I’ll have a Kyrö gin on ice, please”, * LITERALLY LAUGHS OUT LOUD *.
One of the two stills at the distillery.