Teerenpeli 3 Year old

I bet the title left you wondering...no, unfortunately there's nothing squid resembling in the taste (just my reference to Finnish films).

First Finnish whiskey maker Teerenpeli, from the city of Lahti, started it's whiskey making in 2002. Teerenpeli was established in 1995 and it has 5 brewery restaurants in different cities across Finland.

Teerenpeli's barley is from the region of Päijät-Häme and the malting's been made in Viking Malt in Lahti. In distilling they use the ground water of Salpausselkä. I had the chance to taste Teerenpeli 3 year old in a whiskey tasting in Teerenpeli's Taivaanranta distillery in Lahti.

For a whiskey so young, it was surprisingly good but as you can see from the scoring, not good enough to match single malts with more age.

I can't say it lacked too much in character but all the scents and taste were a bit too rough and short. Teerenpeli 3 yrs seemed a bit like a very young boxer coming to 1st round swinging like crazy, feeling exhausted already in the 2nd round.

I do like roughness when it comes to whisky but usually the good ones have complexity or some smoothing elements to balance the roughness.

I decided to compare Teerenpeli 3 year old to Calamari Union, second film by Finnish movie maker Aki Kaurismäki. Critically aclaimed but not my favorite from A. Kaurismäki. But like Teerenpeli 3 yrs, Calamari Union has some potential elements and fast hues of greatness that leave you wanting to try some of their other stuff.

Nose: Liquory and malty. Sweet barley is the strongest scent with small hints of chocolate

Taste: Sweet toffee and malted barley in a sharp way, some cognac.

Finish: Quite short and peppery.

Balance: Gives you a bit of character in a fast package. For it's age, a good one.