Sweden’s First Distillery

The idea for the distillery came in Spring 2008 on a skiing trip.  Eight friends met up at a mountain lodge and each had with them a bottle of single malt whisky.  They had all taken different bottles and soon conversation turned to the fact that there were no Swedish whiskies and just how whisky is made and with that the journey to Mackmyra(@mackmyra) distillery began.

Mackmyra was founded after one year’s preparation in March 1999 and started a pilot distillery the same year. For the first year the business was run by the company’s eight founders, with no employees. The first drops of raw whisky were distilled on 18 December 1999.

They produced 170 different recipes and their ambassadors participated in the challenge to decide which two recipes we were going to use. In spring 2002 they were ready, and the outcome was Mackmyra Elegant and Mackmyra Smoke.

Mackmyra has two active distilleries. The first went on stream at Mackmyra in 2002, featuring a full-sized pot still from Forsyth’s in Rothes, Scotland, Swedish stainless steel washbacks and a German mash tun, with a production capacity of 600,000 bottles a year.

A second distillery, about 6 miles east of Mackmyra village, was built and went on stream in 2011. The project cost has been estimated at SEK 50 million (Approx. £4.7M), featuring two full-sized pot stills with a production capacity of 1.8M bottles a year. It’s seven stories high, using gravity to power many internal processes within the distillery, resulting in about 45% less energy use compared to the first distillery.

The casks are then stored in a forest warehouse, just a short walk from the distillery itself.

Mackmyra’s Master Blender is Angela D’Orazio (@Angelasshare) who is a one of a select number of rising female stars in the whisky world, both professional and personable and an excellent ambassador for all Mackmyra stand for.

Since then Mackmyra have extended their product range and are working hard for worldwide recognition.  Mackmyra are proving very popular, they regularly interact with their social media fans, gaining them a solid core of devotees.

Mackmyra Range

2002 Mackmyra Reserve

Mackmyra Reserve offers customers the opportunity to track their own personal 30-litre cask from production through maturation to final bottling, at a time of the customer’s own choosing. At present there are several thousand co-owners and/or cask owners. To a large extent these groups overlap and form a core of ambassadors, people with a deep interest in Mackmyra.

2006 Mackmyra Preludium

Mackmyra’s first young, bottled series of limited editions was developed as a concept and launched in 2006 and 2007. Together they made a prelude to the new Swedish whisky. The bottles sold out in a couple of hours.

2008 The First Edition and Mackmyra Brukswhisky

2008 was the year when the first Swedish whisky produced in large volumes, “The First Edition”, was launched. It is produced in their very own way, using Swedish ingredients and no additives whatsoever. 2009 also saw the start of the building process for their own whisky village deep in the forest of Gävle. In 2010 they launched Mackmyra Brukswhisky with the aim of becoming established in the premium range.