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Kyrö Distillery in pictures
From its humble beginnings as a dairy factory to the opening of its second distillery, it’s been a whirlwind seven years for Finland’s Kyrö Distillery Company. SB ventured to the village of Isokyrö for a tour.
Kyrö Distillery Company is located in the Finnish village of Isokyrö
Founded in 2012, Kyrö Distillery specialises in rye-based spirits, including its flagship Napue Gin. The distillery fired up its stills in 2014 and launched its first Finnish rye whisky in December 2017.
Kyrö is the brainchild of Miika Lipiäinen, Mikko Koskinen, Kalle Valkonen, Miko Heinilä and Jouni Ritola, who came up with the idea while sharing a dram of rye whisky in a sauna.
The firm is set on expanding its brand globally, and is currently building a new distillery to bolster its whisky production.
Click through the following pages to see what SB got up to while visiting Kyrö Distillery earlier this month.
The day’s tour began with a trip to the nearby forest, where a traditional Finnish breakfast was served along with a mix of Koskue Gin and apple juice.
This was followed by a foraging session, which saw the group pick up ingredients from the forest to create our own gin.
The ingredients were then transported to the distillery’s lab to create four different expressions in its stills. The group experimented with various ingredients including sorrel, meadowsweet, pine and berries. Following the blending workshop, the group tasted each of the four distillates to choose a gin to be bottled and taken home.
After the blending workshop, we began tour of the distillery and visitor centre. The distillery itself was built next to the River Kyrö in a cheese factory built in 1908 that used to produce Finnish Oltermanni cheese. It was inspired by an ingredient the founders considered vital in Finland: rye.
The distillery fired up its stills in 2014 after it received its permit. Kyrö creates all its products from Finnish rye, which is grown in fields, harvested then dried out. While the firm originally planned to solely make whisky, the team decided to produce gin while they waited for their whisky to mature.
The distillery produces rye spirits with different recipes, such as Napue and Koskue gins, Juuri rye spirit and ready-to-drink Long Kyrö. Napue Gin is Kyrö’s flagship product, which is named after the Battle of Napue.
In 2017, the distillery separated its whisky and gin lines to allow for simultaneous production. The site also increased its bottling capacity, renovated its facilities and improved its logistics. As a result, the total production capacity of both gin and whisky increased by 400%.
The expansion project also saw the company construct a new bottling facility. The line was relocated to the new space and increased its capacity from 1,700 to 4,500 bottles per day.
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Kyrö is currently building a new whisky distillery adjacent to its current site, which is expected to be completed in the next few months. Last year, the current distillery was able to produce 130,000 litres, making it the biggest whisky distillery in Finland, according to its founders.
Once complete, the second site will expand Kyrö’s annual distilling capacity from 85,000 litres of pure alcohol (LPA) to 350,000 LPA in the first stage. It will have the ability to produce up to one million litres, including fermentation capacity. The site will house eight 12,000-litre fermenters, a 9,000-litre still and a 7,000-litre still.
The tour concluded with a tasting of the Kyrö Distillery Company’s spirits range, including Napue and Koskue gins, Juuri rye spirit, single malt whisky Kyrö Malt, and a cream liqueur.
Koskue is a rye gin made by adding black pepper, orange peel, birch and cranberries to a base rye spirit aged for three months in a medium-charred American oak barrel.
Juuri is a double-distilled rye new make, made from 100% rye malt. Tasting notes include dried plums, pine sap and a hint of eucalyptus.
Kyrö Malt is aged in new American white oak casks and will have limited availability until 2020.
The evening saw the group indulge in traditional Finnish fare, with a dinner overlooking a nearby lake. After dinner, it was back to the distillery for a dip in the on-site hot tub and sauna. While some of the braver members of the group headed for a swim in the river.