After my inaugural experience with Säntis Malt Edition Sigel, I approached this next one with some trepidation.

Like with Edition Sigel, Edition Himmelberg received its primary aging in old oak beer casks. But it is a blend of whiskies that were subsequently finished in port, sherry, Merlot and other red wine casks, all blended together for this final bottling. It is bottled at a slightly higher strength than Edition Sigel (43% ABV here), and is non chill filtered and with no added colour.

Here’s hoping the extra wine cask finishing can help save the base beer cask aging.

Himmelberg is a region in Germany, and the name stems from the root Middle High German himel (“heaven”) and bërc (“hill”). Unfortunately, there aren’t enough reviews of Edition Himmelberg to make it into my Meta-Critic Database, but here are how the other Swiss malt whiskies compare.

Säntis Alpstein (all editions): 8.59 ± 0.12 on 3 reviews ($$$$$)
Säntis Edition Sigel: 7.94 ± 0.86 on 7 reviews ($$$$)
Säntis Edition Säntis: 7.57 ± 0.84 on 7 reviews ($$$)
Säntis Edition Dreifaltigkeit / Cask Strength Peated: 7.37 ± 1.67 on 9 reviews ($$$$)
Swiss Highland Classic Single Malt: 8.59 ± 0.48 on 4 reviews ($$$$$)

As mentioned in my Edition Sigel review, the Santis malt whiskies are not faring well in my database – with the possible exception of the various Alpstein expressions (although there are relatively few reviews here). Interestingly, each one of these Alpstein editions – and there have been at least 10 to date – were finished in a single type of wine or fortified wine cask. I’m somewhat hopeful that the blended wine cask finishing on Edition Himmelberg will thus produce a better result than the base Edition Sigel.

The 50 mL sample bottle cost ~$10 CAD in Zurich.

Let’s see what I find in the glass:

Colour: Slightly darker than Sigel, suggesting the extra wine cask finishing.

Nose: Sweet nose, I’m definitely getting both classic sherry and port notes. Strong impression of sugar pie (i.e., baked brown sugar and cream), which is novel. Fresh pear and apple fruit, plus dried figs and raisins. Oranges. Rancio. Touch of cinnamon and baking spices – so, apple pie to join that sugar pie. A slightly off-putting underlying sour note (likely from the beer casks again), with a touch of glue. Still, a much better experience than the Edition Sigel malt – this has a lot more character, and is more substantial.

Palate: Same pear notes as the nose, with additional caramel sweetness adding to the creamy brown sugar. Vanilla and cinnamon. Tobacco. Lighter than expected, both in terms of flavour and texture – although there is some granularity to the mouthfeel, which I like. The 43% ABV is certainly helping here. Less tongue tingle than Sigel, despite the extra alcohol. Some sourness builds at the end unfortunately, but it is still ok.

Finish: Medium. That creamy brown sugar sweetness returns, with the lingering baked sugar pie experience (and baking spices too). A bit of dark chocolate, which is new. But there is also a persistent sourness on the finish, which detracts personally.

Definitely a much better experience than the Edition Sigel, which just seemed like an unbalanced mess to me. Adding water to Edition Himmelberg dampens the whole experience. This is unusual, as I find water usually accentuates the sweetness (not here). I recommend you sample it neat.

As you can tell from my description, I found this one to be fairly decent – although there is still something that doesn’t quite gel for me (i.e., that persistent sour note). So I would give it a score in the low 8s on the Meta-Critic scale (i.e., ~8.3), which is a bit below the overall malt whisky average. While not perfect, there are enough interesting notes here to make this one worth trying.

The only reviewer in my database who has also scored this whisky is Jim Murray. He gives it a very average score for all whiskies in the database (so on the Meta-Critic scale, ~8.5 equivalent). I will update the database and this review if I get a third reviewer.