Panimoravintola Beer Hunter's

"Panimoravintola Beer Hunter's was founded on 8 April 1998 in the city of Pori. However, at first it only served as a restaurant and a brewery. On 8 November 2001 at six PM, self-taught Mika Heikkinen begun distilling the first batch of malt whisky produced in Finland. The first batch's casks are to be opened in 2034 when Mika Heikkinen turns 60 years of age. An auction of 100 bottles of Old Buck whisky from the second batch was held on the 1st of December 2004 and the rest was resealed back into the casks. Future batches will mainly be sold to wholesalers in hand blown bottles made by Estonian Tarbeklaas. The copper stills used by Beer Hunter's were manufactured by German Arnold Holstein and the casks used are old sherry casks from Spain and new ones from Portugal. In April 2004, Beer Hunter's had produced a total of 2000 liters of malt whisky.[3] Beer Hunter's Old Buck second release was also chosen by Jim Murray as the "European Mainland Whisky of the Year" in his "Whisky Bible 2009".[4] Murray describes the whisky as "pure bourbon: with the nose offering every degree of honeycomb-liquorice imaginable".[5] According to Mika Heikkinen "If there was to be a page written about us, I do not know how we would be described. I feel that we can produce malt whisky like Glenfiddich without a smoky aroma, as well as Laphroaig style smoky whisky."