An age-old marketing trend has been the use of celebrities to promote brands and it has exploded in the whisky industry over the past couple of years. Before the surge, however, Swedish distillery Mackmyra partnered with English rock band Motörhead to help celebrate the group’s 40th anniversary in 2015. The band actively worked with the distillery to choose the barrels and blends, all aged at least five years. Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee said “We think it’s great fun to launch a whisky in collaboration with a Swedish, world-famous distillery, Mackmyra. The whisky is incredibly good, with full character and fully flavoured with a superb bourbon touch” Motörhead’s front man Lemmy Kilminster was even more succinct: “Life is less painful with Motörhead Whisky. I may consider having a sip now and then.”
Distillery: Mackmyra
Region: Foreign
Age: NAS
Strength: 40%
Price: $66.69
Maturation: New American oak, with some finished in ex-Oloroso sherry casks
Location: Mackmyra, Sweden
Nose: Milk chocolate, vanilla, spice, cream honey, anise, almond paste, prune
Palate: Cream, spice, butterscotch, anise, clove, oak, marzipan
Finish: Sherry, spice, salted caramel, oak
Comments: Some hints of citrus come out if you add a few drops of water. Not needed, but fun to experiment with.
Adam – The Mackmyra Motörhead is a whisky you have to be patient with. If you’re not paying attention, it just comes across as young. But that would be a disservice. Aged 5 years, the variety of casks it was aged in give some complexity of character. There’s a fun balance of sweetness and spice, with an underlay of the anise that is one of the commonalities across Mackmyra offerings. This curious mix is the kind of drink you want to focus and explore and talk over with your friends. Party on, Wayne.
Meghan – It’s like an old fashioned Christmas with the not quite definable spice flavored hard candies, the ones you don’t really like but eat at your relatives’ house to be polite. The nose, with water, is reminiscent of one of those chocolate oranges. The spices, sherry, and almond marzipan flavors hearken to fruit cake.
Peter – I get that vanilla, like cake batter, then someone flips the switch and you get all this heat that I don’t care for. The Mackmyra Motörhead is fine, but I wouldn’t buy a bottle.
The spices, sherry, and almond marzipan flavors hearken to fruit cake.
Mary-Fred – The sweetness on the nose goes well with the creaminess. I quite enjoyed it, and enjoyed it the more and more I drank it. It’s more sweet than spicy for me.
Ben – Butterscotch cream soda all over the tongue. Like hanging around with your grandparents, eating the candy out of their bowl. I like the description interesting. It’s all over the place and all kinds of things are happening. No sip is like the sip before. Every time you take a sip, there’s something different happening. Maybe that’s me growing toward whatever it all is. Because you’ve got grandpa’s candy bowl and cream soda. Or a Dum Dum lolly pop.
Kate – It’s a person who’s talking too fast for me. I want them to slow down and enunciate. Much more pleasant with a bit of water.
Henry – There’s an old-time American cooked candy vibe to this. Butterscotch, or those old anise candies. Licorice at grandma’s. It’s like the aromatic oils counter exploded at the tasting lab. The Mackmyra Motörhead is not a layered thing, it’s linear. Bitter orange, anise, cream soda, root bear. Like exits along the highway. A very juicy, limpid finish. The opposite of a one-hit wonder. It’s a cacophony. But the cacophony aren’t dissonant, they blend along.
