From the Finnish sauna to the world: How five friends founded a distillery
On May 10, 2012, five friends were sitting in a Finnish sauna drinking an American rye whiskey that one of them had brought back from the USA. The question that preoccupied them was as simple as it was consequential: Why is no one in Finland making whiskey from rye? Miika Lipiäinen, Mikko Koskinen, Kalle Valkonen, Miko Heinilä and Jouni Ritola founded the Kyrö Distillery Company that same year — none of them had any prior experience in distillation. They traveled to micro-distilleries all over Europe, gathered knowledge, and tested their first batches on a borrowed still in the rooms of Kalle's parents.
A vacant dairy building from 1908 in the West Finnish village of Isokyrö finally gave the distillery its home — exactly where the famous Finnish Oltermanni cheese was once produced. In 2014, the first of their own stills started running. What followed was not a straightforward rise, but a story full of twists: Napue Gin, originally intended only as a stopgap during the whiskey maturation period, won the award for best gin in the Gin & Tonic category at the International Wine and Spirit Competition in 2015 — and was sold out within two days.
In Rye We Trust: Rye as a philosophy, not an ingredient
At Kyrö, rye is not a decision that is made anew every year. "In Rye we trust" is the distillery's motto — and it is meant literally. Every drop that leaves Isokyrö is based on 100% Finnish whole-grain rye. The grain has been grown in Finland for over 2,000 years and is considered the toughest challenge in distillation: sticky, idiosyncratic, demanding to process. Kyrö chooses it anyway — or perhaps precisely because of that.
The water comes from Isokyrö itself. Since Finland's rock layers are geologically very old, the hard minerals have been washed out over millennia: the water is exceptionally soft, which directly influences the character of the distillates. For the gins, the team distills individual botanicals as concentrates because of the short Finnish summer, in order to be able to produce all year round. Yeast strains, cut points, and cask selection are constantly being tested — rye remains the fixed point, everything else is an experiment.
Whiskey, gin and Finnish botanicals: the Kyrö range
The Kyrö Malt Whiskey is distilled in pot stills and matured in American oak casks for between three and five years. The base is always 100% Finnish whole-grain rye. Building on this, variants with their own character were created: The Kyrö Malt Oloroso is finished in Oloroso sherry casks, developing nutty, fruity, dark notes. The Kyrö Malt Wood Smoke carries a Finnish smoke component — a style reminiscent of the long, dark winters of Ostrobothnia.
In the gin sector, Kyrö works on the same rye base. The Kyrö Pink Gin gets its color from natural Finnish ingredients such as cloudberries, strawberries, and rhubarb — fruits from forests and gardens around Isokyrö. The botanical range as a whole reflects the Finnish landscape: cranberries, sea buckthorn, spruce needles, meadowsweet, and birch leaves appear in various expressions. Kyrö also cooperates with other distilleries — for example, together with the Kyoto Distillery, a gin was created that combines Finnish and Japanese botanicals. The result of all this work is a range that is consistently dedicated to one question: what Finland tastes like when you distill it.
