Yerushalmi Mount Moriah Single Malt (Not) Whisky

Yerushalmi Mount Moriah Single Malt

 

Baruchim HaBa’im to a new distillery here in Israel. Mazal Tov!

So wonderful to get some good news in the middle of all this misery.

The Distillery

Yerushalmi is a brand-new distillery housed currently in the Mosco Brewery in Moshav Zanoach in Beit Shemesh, but with plans to move the plant to a more permanent facility in Jerusalem, when finances allow.

The distillery, the brainchild of David Zibell Master Distiller and owner of Golani Golan Heights Distillery, in collaboration with Nitai Morgenstern, On Site Distillery Manager in the brewery and Amir Lev, Brewery Manager of Mosco Brewery.

Photo courtesy of Yerushalmi Distillery

The distillery consists of a single pot-still and worm tub, custom made in the Golan Heights, according to David Zibell’s exact specifications. First the still is used to make the low wines from the wash. The low wines are then stored in tanks until there is a sufficient amount to fill the same still in order to produce new-make-spirit.

Whisky

The Initial Range consists of a Rum and five Single Malts. To their credit, they do not state that the Single Malts are “whisky”, keeping to the Scottish Whisky Association regulations that the term can only apply to spirit matured in Oak casks for a minimum of three years. These Single Malts have been matured for around 14 months! But please don’t stop reading now as I am about to describe a minor miracle of maturation which has managed to produce some quite remarkable spirit.

 

"Jewish Pirates" Golden Rum

I bought a bottle of this just to try it and boy, was I impressed. I hope to do a review of this in the near future.

The Single Cask Single Malts

There are four Single Cask Expressions. Being single casks, it means that they can only get a few hundred bottles out of them. However, similar to Golani Single Casks, they have bottled a small percentage at cask strength and the rest, they have watered down to around 46% abv to stretch the amount of bottles per cask, without compromising on quality.

So, we have:

Pirate (Rum) Oak Single Cask

Solum Sessile Oak French New Charred Oak Single Cask

Solum Dessert White Wine Single Cask.

Beer Barrel Single Cask

I managed to purchase a bottle of Pirate (Rum) and the Solum Dessert White Wine Single Cask which I hope to review soon.

As well as the Single Cask Expressions, they have produced 1500 bottles of Single Malt made from a marriage of two types of casks, STR Red Wine casks and their own in-house Yerushalmi Rum Casks. They have named this:

Mount Moriah Single Malt

It is this bottle which I have the pleasure of reviewing now, made from a marriage of the above casks.

 

David Zibell Interview by Telephone and WhatsApp

David used predominantly STR (Shaved/Toasted/Re-charred) 225 L French Oak Casks but with the addition of some very special In-house Rum Casks. He writes..

"These Rum Casks started off as a new Charred STR American Oak barrels and were used to age our in-house Rum. The Rum was then bottled and the empty barrels were then filled with our single malt spirit".

"The barley is from Castle Malting in Belgium. The barley is dried with Scottish Mainland Speyside peat.

The incredible amount of maturation and flavour complexity and depth is due to a single-year utilising a very special barrel preparation process I do, which open up the pores in oak and produces a radically intense wood to spirit interaction. This causes the most insane and rapid maturation".

The Distillery Still.

The Wash enters the Still

The Condenser Worm Tub

The New Make Spirit coming off the still

When I asked for photos of the distillery, housed in this brewery in the moshav, I couldn’t quite work out what was going on. You see, I could only see one still and a worm-tub condenser. I asked David where the second still was? David replied that, indeed, there was only one still! I wasn’t going to leave it at that so asked for an explanation as to how they managed double distillation from a single still.

David Zibell explained on WhatsApp that they start off doing a few wash runs, producing low wines at about 20% abv which they store in plastic tanks, until they have enough for a spirit run. They then use the same still to distil the low wines into new-make spirit at about 70% abv. David added that, once finances allowed, they intended to install a larger still to use that as the new Wash still and keep the original one as the Spirit still.

 

Mount Moriah Single Malt. RR Price 220 Shekels.

Peated to a level of 35 PPM (similar to Laphroaig, Caol Ila or Lagavulin).

It was bottled at 46.3% abv in August 2020. 1500 700ml Bottles were filled.

The entire product range is Non Chill-Filtered and Natural Colour.

Kashrus: Local Rabbanut LeMahedrin, Badatz Beis Yosef and OK Certification.

 

What’s in the Name?

The distillery name Yerushalmi means a person who lives in Jerusalem or something typical of Jerusalem.

For instance, Kuegel Yerushalmi is a Kuegel (a pasta pudding) famous for its burnt sugar and black pepper ingredients.

Mount Moriah (or in Hebrew Har Moriah), is the mountain chosen by Hashem where the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple would be built. Its summit is commonly known as the “The Temple Mount”.  This is the name of the elongated north-south stretch of high land lying between Kidron Valley and "Hagai" Valley, between Mount Zion to the west and the Mount of Olives to the east.

For information see https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/mount-moriah

Tsapit Avir Photography, City of David Archives

The Packaging Design

From the first glance, you can tell that a lot of investment has gone into the design of the packaging to immediately create a brand image consisting of a fusion of ancient historic Jewish Jerusalem “Yerushalmi” symbols (such as the bronze embossed emblem of the Lion of Yehudah”), and familiar design elements commonly found in quality Scottish independent craft distilleries. Clearly someone has been doing their homework and I commend the designer for doing an excellent job.

(Second from Left). Actual ancient Seal found of King Jeroboam discovered in Megiddo and then some other examples.

Every aspect of the bottle design is, in my opinion, spot on and what’s more, thankfully avoids the all too common pitfall of so many Israeli designers who try too hard to impress and end up looking desperate as if they are saying “Please take me seriously”.  AdaRaba, it is clear that this designer has employed (“borrowed”), that oh so brilliant classical British cultural design skill for the understatement, which conveys the clear message of resolute confidence. Not only Israelis, but American and European designers simply don’t get this. It shows that this designer really does know how to employ this skill and has employed it right down to the fine detail. (I wonder if the designer is actually British or originally comes from the British Commonwealth? Just a thought.)

For instance, just look at the barely visible PPM statement, drawing clear design inspiration (at least in my mind),  from mid to late 19^th century Victorian Engraved Postage stamps and cancellation marks declaring that this Single Malt has been peated to 35 PPM (Phenol Parts Per Million). It’s glorious and spot on!

I have no idea how much the designer actually is familiar with Scottish Craft Distilleries but when I saw this, I immediately saw a similarity to Isle of Arran regarding the general bottle shape, but with the added twist of a wide cork stopper style (excuse the pun), very suggestive of Signatory Independent bottlers or Kilchoman distillery.

So let's do some photo trickery and see how similar it actually is...

I really admire the attention to detail.

I do have one design criticism however, of the box.  The inside flap or tongue, which is supposed to keep the bottle from rattling about during transport. The folding cardboard technique design clearly doesn’t work and in all the bottles I have seen, has not even been employed. Instead this tongue remains folded flat against the inside of the box. I tried folding it as designed and it really doesn’t work as you end up more than often, tearing the card trying to fit the bottle in. It’s really odd, as there are so many successful tongue designs out there, why wasn’t any of them used with this box?

In fact, this fusion of symbols from Ancient Yerushalayim and design inspiration from the Craft distilleries of Scotland pretty much reflects the character and flavour of this Single Malt.

Update: I have just found out that the name of the designer is Annie Selby Designs. A truly excellent job. Kol HaKavod !!!!

https://annieselby.com/about-us/

The Label

The label design and layout is excellent but I am really not impressed with the fake hand written information about Bottling Date, Batch and Bottle number, which, when you look closely, is actually printed. By all means, reproduce the signatures of the managers on the label but pretending that someone has hand written the bottling information has led to a lot of misunderstanding. You see, they have “hand written” (printed):

[PIC Bottled 1 / 1500]

Now, I have seen this exact case on the Laphroaig 18 Diamond Jubilee Limited Edition where they printed 1 / 3000. The problem is, that it is possible that one could misunderstand this as meaning that you just happen to have purchased the very first bottle of 3,000! However, when the same method is used but it looks like someone has hand written it, any reasonable person would understand this to mean that you do indeed have the very first of 1500 bottles, until that is, you look at another bottle and see that this too has 1 /1500!

No less than two of my friends have already mentioned to me that they will not be opening the bottle as they believed that they were lucky enough to receive the very first one in the batch, whereupon I send them a WhatApp photo of my bottle saying the exact same thing!

The Tasting Sessions

Because of the Mageifa (pandemic) I had a number of bottles from their brand new Yerushalmi distillery inaugural series delivered to my home back in September. I decided to begin my tasting sessions with this Mount Moriah, the cheapest of the series.

So, Friday night, my wife and youngest and unmarried son sat down to enjoy the Seudas Shabbos after having davaned (prayed) in the public park across the road, masks on and social distancing of at least two metres. Because of the Seger (the lockdown) to our great sorrow, we cannot have any of our extended family over so, because there are only three of us, I purchased a number of little 375ml bottles of both red and white blends from the Gush Etzion winery which I am currently using to recite Kiddush over. (By the way, The Gush Etzion “Nachal Pirim “Red and White blends are highly recommended).

After Kiddush, we washed and said HaMotzei and enjoyed some rather delicious Tuna Salad labelled “Salat Tuna Amerikaiyei” (American Tuna Salad) which I have to admit, I had not made myself but purchased from the local Mekolet (local store), along with some herring in mayonnaise and Chatzilim Iraqi slices.

I then poured a generous dram for my son and myself, and we began some great Father/Son quality time while we discussed this single malt.

 

The Colour

The colour (which I would just like to remind you all is all natural), is dark toffee with a striking tint of red, starkly indicating that some super-active casks have been used in what we already know to be an extraordinarily short maturation period. Even so, holding the Single Malt up to light, we see the colour is simply ludicrously opulent with a predominantly ruby-bronze affect, transparently exhibiting the type of casks used.

Surprisingly for a heavily peated Non-Chill Filtered and bottled at 46.3% abv whisky, whilst swirling this single malt around in the glass, it didn’t seem to be particularly oily, making a pattern around the Glencairn glass resembling a pearl necklace. Nevertheless, I did add a few drops of water but this is honestly all it needs.

 

On the Nose

Even straight from the bottle, there is absolutely no alcohol nose pinch whatsoever, something which I would have thought would be totally impossible to achieve for an ultra-young spirit like this. I simply cannot wrap my head around it.

We both identified at almost the same time an unmistakable and unambiguous aroma of heavily oaked red wine and warm soft peat. The peat is prominent but not overpowering, like being inside an old wooden beamed barn filled with freshly peated barley. Simply glorious.

The peat is clearly mainland peat and not coastal. Earthy, creamy and very malty like baking barley bread on an open peat fireplace?

Although a major aroma component, the peat takes backstage to a more dominant aroma of wonderful lusciously fruity red blackcurrant jam and red wine notes which reminded me of a heavily oaked Marselan or Merlot wine.

Underneath this we have sweet charred oak, creamy burnt black toffee, black treacle with tuns of sweet cinnamon reminding me of a glass of hot red wine or Ribena cordial with cinnamon drink.

After further discussion we came up with ripe juicy raisins, cinnamon yeast and apple treacle cake, with loads of oak spices.

Oddly, my son noticed some kind of Middle Eastern spice. Something like Mizrachi charif spicy food in the background. Perhaps Hilbe or kind of Temini spice? When he mentioned this, I understood what he was saying. There is some kind of spice aroma not found in Scotch Whisky. I could be wrong but I suspect that it’s coming from the Israeli Rum casks. It’s certainly not unpleasant and on the contrary, it adds to the uniqueness and character complexity which this Single Malt has in abundance.

 

Tasting

My son and I took a generous sip of the Yerushalmi Mount Moriah and held it there in the mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. We both looked up at the same time and stared at each other with wide smiles on our faces.

Peaty-malty multigrain biscuits, rich honey, soft black toffee, burnt old wood timbers, black treacle, apple, black cherries, blackcurrants and raisin crumble, dates, figs, black treacle sponge pudding and loads of oak spices. All this on a base of gentle peat like a warming wood fire crackling away in the fireplace.

I was saying to my son that you get a greater appreciation of all those sweet tannin fruity red wine flavours by swirling the liquid around in your mouth. Purple blackcurrant fruit chews (what Israelis wrongly call Toffee Peirot). Thick blackcurrant preserves with toffee caramel spread.

 

The Finish

The Finish is long, which is not uncommon in heavily peated super young Single Malts. However, the dominant flavour left on the palate is always the peat!  Not with this Yerushalmi though. Instead we get predominantly delicious red fruity oak wine and burnt toffee flavours in the mouth, similar to drinking a quality Red wine which has been in the bottle for ten years. That doesn’t mean that there is no peat on the aftertaste. Remains of warm embers of lingering peat smoke is very evident in the background and simply adds body and complexity to all those dry fruits and red wine flavours.

Conclusion

You know, this Yerushalmi Mount Moriah Single Malt reminds me of the story of the young Rabbi Elazar Ben Azariah who was appointed the head of the Sanhedrin after the sacking of Rabban Shimon Ben Gamliel. (See Mesheches Rosh Hashana 2:5 and particularly see Meseches Chagigah 3b, as well as The Haggadah text). Elazar Ben Azariah was eminently qualified for the position but suffered from one simple fact, that is, he was only just out of his teens when the Chachamim appointed him as the head of the great assembly. Anyone who had ever witnessed and experienced his genius and maturity of reasoning could not fail to be impressed by him, yet it simply defied logic that someone so young could even be considered for the post, let alone be elected. So, as the Haggadah mentions, overnight, his hair and beard miraculously turned white in order to remove any hint of pretentiousness from him. This "not-whisky", is in my opinion, the “Rabbi Elazar Ben Azariah” equivalent of Single Malts.

I cannot recommend this highly enough, even to those who usually are not too keen on peatied whiskies. There are only 1,500 bottles of this inaugural release. I have already gone through two bottles myself and have another two at home. I have also given quite a few bottles to family and friends. How’s that for an endorsement?

It pains me tremendously that, at least for the moment I cannot give a bottle of this Yerushalmi to my father, in the UK without having to be in Bidud (quarantine) for two weeks when I get there and another two weeks when I get back. I’m sure he would love it. The experts are talking about not being able to freely travel abroad until the end of 2021! At that point, will there actually be any budget airlines like Easyjet still in business or will there be only Scheduled flights costing triple the pre-Covid-19 price for sale?

One wonders what this spirit will taste like when it does come of age, that is, reach the Bar Mitzvah age equivalent for whiskies, seeing as it has already achieved more in its one year that most whiskies do not achieve in a life time. Highfalutin words? Just grab a bottle and try it yourself and you’ll see I’m not exaggerating, but perhaps understating the pure enjoyment and delight you will get from this bottle.

However, having said all this, I’d highly recommend assessing this Mount Moriah expression before you go on to the more expensive Single Cask releases. Firstly, it gives you a good introduction as to the home-style character flavour notes of the Yerushalmi distillery and secondly, if the Single Rum Cask, Cask-Strength release (which I have just tried), is anything to go by, my advice is that you should start with the fantastic and then go on to the sublime.

Shabbos Table set for just three.

Covid-19 and Whisky

Talking of Cask Strength Single Malt, not only can you use it as luxury hand sanitizer being 60% abv or higher, I have been informed by a reliable source that whisky is an excellent home Covid-19 test, with fewer false positives than the one being used by the clinics. Every evening you need to sit down with a glass whisky and smell and sip it, comparing tasting notes you made from your previous session with this particular expression to this evening’s glass. If your smell and taste seem impaired, then this is one of the typical symptoms of Covid-19 and you should seek medical advice.

If your tasting notes however, are pretty much what they were the last time you sampled this expression, then you can be reasonably assured that you don't have Covid-19. However, just to be on the safe side, multiple tests of various expressions are recommended throughout the evening.