This is one of Helsinki Distilling Company's signature creations: a whisky built from a three-grain mash of spelt, rye and malted barley. Spelt — an ancient wheat relative — is rarely seen in whisky-making, and using it alongside rye gives the spirit a layered, bready sweetness you simply do not find elsewhere.
Helsinki Distilling, founded in 2014 in the converted Teurastamo abattoir quarter, was the first whisky distillery in the Finnish capital in over a century. The team — Mikko Mykkänen, Kai Kilpinen and Séamus Holohan — set out to use Finnish grain in interesting ways, and the Spelt Rye Malt is the clearest example of that ambition. The mash is fermented long, distilled on copper pots and matured in oak that lets the grain do most of the talking.
The nose is immediately distinctive: rye crust, toasted spelt, dried fig and clove, with vanilla oak in the background. The palate runs spicy and bready — black pepper and cinnamon up front, then raisin, honey loaf and a soft nutty sweetness from the spelt that lingers underneath the rye heat. The finish is long and warming, drifting through baked grain and oak spice.
Bottled at 47.5%, it has the body to carry all three grains without one drowning the others. A genuinely original Nordic whisky that rewards slow sipping — and a fine argument for keeping ancient grains alive in modern distilling.
