Kyrö was born, famously, in a sauna. In 2012 five Finnish friends were sweating out a weekend in rural Ostrobothnia when they wondered aloud why nobody was making rye whisky in Finland — a country that grows some of the finest rye in Europe and puts it in nearly everything but its whisky. By the end of the weekend they had a plan. By 2014 they had a distillery, housed in a century-old dairy building in the village of Isokyrö.
Kyrö Malt is their flagship whisky — a 100% malted rye, a rare style in a rye world where most distilleries blend in corn or barley. Malting rye is notoriously difficult; it is sticky, gummy, temperamental. Kyrö do it anyway, distil it in copper pot stills from Germany, and mature the spirit in American oak. Bottled at 47.2% ABV, unchill-filtered and natural colour, it is a rye of uncommon purity and character.
What that means in the glass is a whisky that tastes distinctly, emphatically, of its grain. There is none of the rounding softness of corn, no barley smoothing the edges — just rye, bold and bread-scented and pepper-bright, given depth and warmth by the wood.
Kyrö Malt has picked up significant international attention, including a World's Best Rye nod at the World Whiskies Awards, and deservedly so. It is a rye that proves Finland has its own story to tell, and that the best whisky ideas sometimes really do come from the sauna.
