Ep. 247: High Coast Distillery with Roger Melander Show Notes
High Coast Distillery: Roger Melander on Swedish Whisky, Cold-Climate Maturation, and Building a Distillery at 63°N
This episode takes us back to Sweden, a country we’ve only visited once before on the podcast, and one of the most quietly exciting whisky scenes in Europe.
I’m joined by Roger Melander, master distiller at High Coast Distillery, which began life as Box Distillery before changing names in 2018. Roger has been there since 2010, which means he arrived while the site was still a construction project and helped shape High Coast from the beginning of production into one of the most respected names in Nordic whisky.
That kind of continuity is rare. It’s even rarer when the person in question came in with a mechanical engineering background, a deep whisky palate, years of tasting and teaching experience, and enough curiosity to build a distillery around questions rather than inherited rules.
High Coast is fascinating because the place itself is fascinating: an old wood-fired power station, once tied to the timber industry, sitting on the Ångermanälven River about 500 kilometers north of Stockholm. It’s a beautiful site, but beauty is only part of it. The water is ultra-soft. The cooling water is frigid. The warehouses swing from deep winter cold to warm summer heat. The distillery sits at the 63rd parallel, and Roger has spent the last decade and a half figuring out how to turn those conditions into whisky rather than treating them as obstacles.
And then there are the details. If you’re the sort of person who wants to know barley varieties, yeast, fermentation times, cut points, filling strengths, cask sizes, cask histories, decimal-point age statements, and why a whisky should never be emptied too cold, High Coast is a dangerous place to visit online. Bring snacks.
From Beer Geek to Swedish Whisky Maker
Roger’s entry into whisky started, appropriately enough, with beer.
He was a beer geek first, doing beer tastings in the 1980s before whisky gradually took over. By the mid-1990s, malt whisky had become a serious focus, and in 2002 he started a company doing whisky education, tastings for clubs, and training for bar staff. Alongside that, he was running a mechanical engineering business, which becomes important later because High Coast is very much a distillery where engineering and flavor keep shaking hands.
Roger had considered going to Scotland to work in whisky full time, but then the opportunity came to join a new distillery project in northern Sweden. At first, he thought he could do it part time, working with tastings and marketing while keeping his engineering business. Then the CEO called and asked him to become distillery manager.
That changed everything.
Roger’s answer in the episode is telling. If he had gone to Scotland, even in a good position, he likely wouldn’t have had the freedom to do whatever he wanted. At this new Swedish distillery, he could build the style from the ground up. For someone who cared about whisky, engineering, experimentation, and the actual flavor of new make, that was too good to pass up.
He started in the autumn of 2010, and the fun began.
The Old Power Station That Became Box Distillery
High Coast’s origin story begins before whisky enters the picture.
One of the founders was an artist looking for a studio and gallery, and in the 1990s he found an old power station with a 30-meter chimney. The building had once been a wood-fired power station, operating from 1912 to 1924, serving the timber sorting operation nearby. He bought it from the community for about $300 and began restoring it, putting in windows and doors and replacing hundreds of bricks in the chimney.
Eventually, when the roof started leaking, the question became what to do with the building. The answer from his brother was simple enough: let’s make whisky.
They had no real whisky-making knowledge at the time, which is both alarming and somehow perfectly on-brand for many great distillery origin stories. By spring 2010, they had ordered equipment: pot stills from Scotland and stainless steel equipment from Sweden. When Roger first visited that October, it was still a construction site, but he saw the potential immediately.
The distillery was originally called Box because the site itself had carried that name. The old sawmill company had changed its Swedish name to Box Company Limited because it exported wooden parts to England, and the name stuck to the place. The gallery was Box Power Station, so the whisky became Box Whisky and Box Distillery.
Then came the name change.
High Coast owned the Box name in Europe, but once coverage began appearing in the United States, lawyers connected to Compass Box objected to another whisky company with “Box” in the name. Roger pointed out that there were other American distilleries with “box” in their names, but Compass Box had a small company called Bacardi behind it, and High Coast had fewer legal muscles to flex. So in 2018, Box Distillery became High Coast Distillery.
Honestly, High Coast is a better name for where the whisky comes from anyway.
Swedish Whisky and the State Monopoly
Before getting too deep into High Coast itself, Roger helped set the scene for Sweden.
Swedish drinking culture may surprise people who only know the Nordic countries from stereotype and state alcohol policy. Sweden drinks plenty of beer, wine, and spirits, but Roger pointed out that the proportion of malt whisky is unusually high compared to the global average. Globally, malt whisky may be a small slice of whisky consumption, while in Sweden it’s much larger. Sweden has long been a serious malt whisky market.
At the same time, Sweden’s alcohol system is still shaped by the state monopoly, Systembolaget. Distilleries can’t operate the way producers in many other countries do. The rules have loosened somewhat, and small producers can now sell limited amounts directly under strict conditions, but there are major caveats. Visitors need a guided tour, information about alcohol’s risks, and other requirements, and if a producer makes more than 75,000 liters of pure alcohol per year, it can’t sell on site under those rules.
High Coast has generally been too large for that direct-sale exception, though Roger noted that with current reduced production, it may become possible in the future if the lower production levels continue.
For visitors, that creates a strange almost-there experience. High Coast can offer tours, tastings, a restaurant, and even hand-filling from casks, but those bottles still have to be sent through the monopoly system rather than simply handed over at the distillery. It’s charming, bureaucratic, and slightly absurd, which is to say: whisky law wearing a little Nordic sweater.
Distilling 500 Kilometers North of Stockholm
High Coast sits in the High Coast region of Sweden, about 500 kilometers north of Stockholm, on the Ångermanälven River.
It’s a beautiful location, and Roger said people visit the area for hiking, tourism, and the landscape as much as for whisky. The distillery gets around 25,000 visitors a year, mostly in summer, with tours, tastings, the restaurant, and the kind of view that makes even non-whisky drinkers understand why someone might build something there.
From a production standpoint, the location brings real advantages.
The process water is ultra-soft, almost too clean for whisky in Roger’s view. If High Coast were a brewery, that would be ideal because minerals and salts could be added depending on style. In whisky, Roger doesn’t add anything beyond malt, water, and yeast, so the purity becomes both a gift and a constraint.
The cooling water is another major advantage. The river gives High Coast extremely cold cooling water, and Roger said that while a Scottish distillery might see new make spirit around 20°C in the spirit safe during warmer months, High Coast can be around 2°C. For distillation, that kind of cooling water is not a small detail. It’s one of the hidden engines of the house style.
And then there’s the warehouse climate, which is where High Coast really starts to separate itself.
Roger Melander’s Japanese-Inspired New Make
Roger came into High Coast with a strong interest in Japanese whisky, even before he had tasted Japanese new make.
He knew the style of mature Japanese whisky he loved, and he had to reverse-engineer what kind of new make might become that years later in cask. The goal was clean, fruity, malty spirit, especially for the unpeated recipe.
Years later, when he visited Japanese distilleries, he was actually disappointed by some of the new make he tried. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as clean or as striking as he hoped. Chichibu was the exception. Roger found Chichibu’s unpeated new make close to what he had been aiming for at High Coast, which makes sense given his admiration for Ichiro Akuto and the Chichibu team.
That clean, fruity, malty style is still central to High Coast. Roger’s approach uses clear wort, which he connects to Japanese-style whisky making, and he’s willing to sacrifice yield to get the flavor he wants. That point came up repeatedly. High Coast could chase efficiency in places, but Roger keeps coming back to the same idea: flavor first.
For the peated spirit, the reference point shifts west. You can’t make peated whisky without at least glancing toward Scotland’s west coast and islands, though Roger is clear that High Coast isn’t copying a specific Scottish style. Their standard peated malt sits around 40 to 45 ppm, though they’ve also played with higher peat levels, including batches well over 100 ppm and one at 225 ppm.
At that point, the peat isn’t just in the distillery. It’s probably waving at people from the parking lot.
Pilsner Malt, Clear Wort, and Fermentation
One of the great things about High Coast is how much technical detail they’re willing to share.
The malt is usually Swedish Pilsner malt, though the barley varieties can change. Roger explained that the exact barley strain is less important to him than the malting style and kiln temperature. Pilsner malt is typically used by breweries, while larger whisky distillers often use distiller’s malt. High Coast has tried different options, but Roger prefers Pilsner malt because of the flavor, even if it doesn’t deliver the highest yield.
That sums up a lot of his philosophy.
The mashing process is designed around clear wort. High Coast recycles the first portion over the mash bed until the wort runs clear, then starts cooling it down to the washbacks. Roger also keeps the third water lower than many distillers might, staying below 80°C to avoid extracting harsh tannins from the barley husk. He wants any tannin in the whisky to come from the oak, not the grain.
Fermentation also gets attention. The research doc notes that High Coast’s fermentation goes well beyond the point where most alcohol conversion is complete, allowing more time for citrus and lime-like flavors to develop and for carbon dioxide to release. In the transcript, Roger’s larger point was that the new make should be good to drink before it ever sees a cask.
That’s not a throwaway line. It’s a whole production philosophy.
Stills, Cuts, and Peat
High Coast’s stills were already on site when Roger arrived, so he didn’t choose them, but the story behind them is neat.
The founders had visited Kilchoman in Scotland, which was still a very young distillery at the time, and used the same designer who made Kilchoman’s stills. High Coast’s stills are slightly larger, but the shape is similar.
The distilling choices, though, are Roger’s territory.
For unpeated spirit, he wants clean, fruity, malty character without heavier notes. For peated spirit, he doesn’t want the same level of fruitiness, so the cut strategy changes. The peated recipe gets a shorter early cut and moves differently through the heart, with everything eventually reduced for filling.
That distinction matters because High Coast isn’t simply making one spirit and adding or removing peat. The peated and unpeated recipes are treated as different tools. Early on, production was closer to 50/50 peated and unpeated, partly because Swedish drinkers have historically liked smoky whisky. Over time, High Coast moved much more heavily toward unpeated spirit, though Roger still sees peated whisky as a beautiful tool for blending and adding top notes.
Today, they’re still making peated whisky, but closer to 20 percent of production. That’s enough to give Roger the smoke he wants without letting peat define the entire distillery.
The 63 Project, or Whisky Numerology Done Properly
I had to ask Roger about the 63 Project.
This is the sort of thing that sounds fake until the list keeps going and you realize the bit has become architecture. High Coast sits at the 63rd parallel, so Roger built a whisky project around the number 63. The malt was 63 ppm. The casks were resized bourbon casks of 63 liters. Fermentation lasted 63 hours. The malt cost 6.3 Swedish kronor per kilo. The cooper was born in 1963. The casks matured 6.3 meters above the floor. The whisky was bottled at 63 percent ABV.
And Roger kept going.
The first batch matured for 63 months. Another batch reached 6.3 years. A later portion was re-racked into Pedro Ximénez casks for 630 additional days. The whisky was reduced to 63 percent ABV and bottled at 63°F.
He even wanted a 63-centiliter bottle, but since that wasn’t standard, he pointed out that 63 plus 6.3 plus 0.63 plus 0.063 and so on gets you to 70. Standard bottle achieved, mathematically bullied into compliance.
This is the kind of experiment that makes High Coast so much fun. It’s technical, deeply nerdy, and just playful enough to remind you that whisky doesn’t always need to enter the room wearing a courtroom robe.
Experiments, Accidents, and the Advanced Masterclass
Roger said something I loved: every experiment is good. Some are planned. Others happen because someone messed something up.
That’s a wonderfully honest distillery philosophy.
In the early years, Roger’s experiments focused more on making the best possible new make. Over the last decade, the focus has shifted more toward wood, maturation, filling strength, and cask behavior. High Coast has experimented with different oak types, different cask sizes, different fills, sherry types, Swedish oak, Mongolian oak, chestnut, and more.
One of the more fascinating ideas was the Advanced Masterclass. The concept was to sell a box of five bottles, then have the participant read the theory online and taste through the whiskies blind or semi-blind, arranging them in the correct order based on the concept. One set explored oak heat treatment. Another was supposed to focus on different phenols, but when that didn’t work as planned, Roger turned it into a lesson on the physics and chemistry behind distillation cuts.
That willingness to pivot is part of the fun. High Coast’s experiments don’t feel like gimmicks because Roger is usually trying to learn something. If the original lesson fails, the failure becomes the lesson. If sherry casks don’t separate cleanly enough for the intended educational set, the result can still become a whisky like Cinco, built around five different types of sherry.
The distillery feels like a working lab where the end goal is still pleasure.
Cold-Climate Maturation on the Ångermanälven
High Coast’s warehouse climate is one of the biggest pieces of its identity.
Roger talked about a roughly 60°C swing between cold winter days and warm summer days, from around -30°C to +28°C. For American listeners, that’s roughly -22°F to 82°F, or a temperature swing big enough to make the casks question their life choices.
That fluctuation changes the maturation profile.
In summer, High Coast sees more additive maturation: color, oak extraction, vanilla, spice, and the flavors most drinkers associate with wood influence. In winter, the pressure changes inside the cask can be enormous, especially when temperatures swing quickly over a few days. Roger connects that colder-season movement to more interactive maturation and a different kind of fruitiness.
The fruit from new make is more pear, apple, and citrus. The fruit from winter maturation can move toward tropical notes like mango and papaya.
That’s one of the most interesting points in the whole episode. High Coast isn’t just aging whisky in a cold place. It’s aging whisky in a place where winter and summer seem to do different jobs. Summer builds oak. Winter builds complexity.
Roger’s advice to private cask owners reflects that. If the whisky tastes perfect in March or April, bottle before summer. Another summer may push the oak too far. If it tastes perfect in October, it may be safe to wait through winter into spring, because the cold season adds complexity without the same risk of over-oaking.
That’s climate as a blending partner.
Angel’s Share, Filling Strength, and Cask Size
High Coast’s angel’s share depends heavily on cask size.
For bourbon barrels, Roger averages about 2.55 percent annual loss, not wildly different from Scotland’s familiar 2 percent number. But in small 40-liter casks, losses can run around 4 to 4.5 percent per year. Smaller casks have more wood contact and greater loss, though they also mature faster.
That ties directly into filling strength.
In the first few months of production, High Coast filled at distillation strength, often around 70 percent ABV or higher depending on recipe. In May 2011, they reduced to around 63 percent, and later moved most larger casks to 60 percent. For casks 100 liters or smaller, Roger fills at 56 percent, partly because sherry casks can drop a couple of points immediately due to liquid in the wood.
That evolution wasn’t theoretical. Roger saw a quality difference after a few years and adjusted accordingly. Larger casks can take longer maturation at 60 percent. Smaller casks benefit even more from lower filling strength because their wood impact is faster and more intense.
This is one of the recurring pleasures of talking to Roger. He doesn’t treat these numbers as sacred inherited tradition. He treats them as settings to be tested, understood, and changed when the whisky tells him to.
Bourbon Barrels, Rinsing, and Old Tennis Shoes
Roger has said that Buffalo Trace and Heaven Hill are among his favorite bourbon barrel sources, but in this episode he put an important caveat around that.
For him, the most important thing isn’t necessarily the distillery name. There may be more variation between two Buffalo Trace barrels than between Buffalo Trace and Wild Turkey. What matters most is build quality and whether the barrels have been rinsed.
Some bourbon producers add water to emptied barrels to extract whiskey from the wood, then use that liquid in proofing. It makes economic sense when you’re emptying huge numbers of barrels. There can be several liters of whiskey trapped in the oak, and across thousands of barrels, that’s real money.
But for a distillery receiving those used barrels in Europe, rinsing can be a problem. If water is left in the wood or barrel, Roger says the aroma through the bunghole can be like old tennis shoes. It also strips away some of the previous-content character he wants.
So High Coast tries to buy from producers that don’t rinse.
It’s one of those barrel details most drinkers never think about, but once you hear it, it explains a lot. A used bourbon barrel isn’t just a used bourbon barrel. Its history includes what happened after the bourbon was dumped.
Square Casks, Swedish Oak, and Other Wood Adventures
High Coast has square casks.
Not one. Roger said they’ve had 101 square casks.
That sentence alone should make every cooper in Kentucky sit up and check the door locks.
The square cask project came through a Swedish cooper Roger clearly enjoys challenging. The cooper had started making barrels before there were many local customers, simply because he liked making barrels. Over time, he and Roger traded challenges. One discussion involved whether the top, middle, and bottom layers of outdoor-seasoned staves would produce different flavors because of differing exposure to sunlight, rain, and wind. Later, the cooper sent Swedish oak barrels from different forests and different stave-stack layers, then told Roger it was his job to figure out which was which.
That is either friendship or whisky sadism. Possibly both.
The square cask began as a challenge tied to the old Box name. The first square cask worked, and then the cooper said he thought he could make it even more square. So High Coast ordered 100 more.
Roger has shown pictures to Spanish coopers who said it wasn’t possible. Apparently, it is.
High Coast has also worked with Swedish oak, which Roger describes as giving dry spice, especially something like nutmeg, as well as experiments with chestnut and other wood types. Some chestnut casks are more like chestnut heads on ex-bourbon bodies, which keeps the experiment from turning into full-contact chestnut wrestling.
Again, the theme is consistent: test, learn, have fun, bottle the good stuff.
Transparency for the Two People Who Want Every Detail
High Coast’s website is a gift to whisky nerds.
For releases, they provide a level of detail that many distilleries either don’t have organized or choose not to share: cask types, previous use, resizing, seasoning, barley, yeast, ages measured down to decimals, and more.
I asked Roger whether that was because High Coast’s audience was always especially nerdy or because the information existed and he wanted to share it. His answer was very Roger: if they sell a whisky to 1,000 customers, maybe two of them care about that level of detail, but he used to be one of those two.
So they share it.
You don’t have to read everything. But if you want it, it’s there.
That also extends beyond consumers. Roger said High Coast has no secrets. People can photograph logbooks. They educate other distillers. They run a whisky academy that started in early 2011, bringing in students for a week to learn as much as possible about whisky. Some are enthusiasts, some are in the business, and some are starting or planning distilleries.
That generosity matters for Swedish whisky. Roger’s view is that if Swedish whisky is going to be taken seriously internationally, it’s not enough for one or two distilleries to be good. The whole category benefits when more producers make better whisky.
That is how a scene becomes a scene.
Production Growth, Slowdowns, and the Market
High Coast has grown significantly over the years.
Roger said the distillery’s capacity is about 300,000 liters of pure alcohol per year, and for several years they averaged around 285,000. They were running 14 batches a week, two per day, seven days a week, which was basically maximum output. But the whisky market has changed, and High Coast reduced production in stages, first to 10 batches a week and then further, with current annual production closer to 70,000 liters.
That sounds dramatic, but Roger put it in context. High Coast has been the largest whisky producer in Sweden for several years, at times producing more than all the other Swedish whisky distilleries combined. Even with reduced output, they remain the biggest player in Swedish whisky.
There’s another side benefit: Roger is no longer distillery manager and has more time to plan future experiments. A production slowdown is never purely good news, but for a distillery that has always learned by experimenting, a little more breathing room may not be the worst thing.
Besides, if anyone is going to turn a market correction into a wood-type experiment with a mildly unhinged spreadsheet, it’s probably Roger.
High Coast at 15 Years Old
Earlier this year, High Coast released a 15-year-old whisky, which is a major milestone for a distillery that only began producing in 2010.
Roger explained that the earliest casks were filled at higher entry proofs, around 72 percent for unpeated spirit and 68 percent for peated spirit. Those higher strengths extracted more dry, spicy oak notes and needed longer maturation to reach the same level of balance as later casks filled at lower strength.
For some of those early barrels, High Coast added water during maturation after the angels had taken volume. Roger brought them down to around 54 percent, which helped draw more sweetness and mouthfeel from the oak. The 15-year-old remained in the same barrels, but that mid-maturation water addition changed the way the whisky continued to develop.
That’s unusual, and Roger acknowledged it. Many distilleries would simply let the barrels continue, consolidate them, or batch what remains. High Coast’s warehouse setup makes it easier to access individual casks, which gives Roger more freedom to intervene when he thinks the whisky will benefit.
Again, it comes back to the same thing: the whisky decides.
High Coast’s Place in Swedish and Nordic Whisky
High Coast sits in an interesting place in Swedish whisky.
Mackmyra came first in the modern era. Smögen was around early as well. Spirit of Hven was distilling before High Coast, though with other spirits alongside whisky. Today, Sweden has more than 20 distilleries making whisky, and Roger sees the field as young, varied, and still largely led by the people who started those distilleries.
High Coast has become one of the names that carries real recognition outside Sweden. Roger said that when he travels in Scotland and mentions he’s from Sweden, people often mention High Coast and give a thumbs up.
That reputation has been earned through both quality and openness. High Coast’s core range is now much older than the early releases I found through auction, with the main whiskies generally around eight to nine years old and special releases moving into the 11 to 15-year range. The distillery is also finding its way internationally, with strong markets in Asia and parts of Europe, while North America remains more limited and inconsistent.
For me, High Coast is exactly the kind of distillery that makes whisky auctions dangerous. I found a few bottles somewhat randomly, including early collection releases and a private bottling, and they immediately made me want to learn more. It’s one of those producers that still feels under the radar in the United States, even though the whisky itself is far too good to stay there.
Roger Melander’s Legacy
I closed by asking Roger about legacy, both his own and High Coast’s.
His answer was wonderfully direct. His priorities have been having fun and trying to make the best whisky possible according to his own taste. He hopes other people like it too, of course, but the starting point is honest: make whisky he believes in, learn, experiment, and enjoy the work.
He also wants the people who come after him to keep doing good things and to keep having fun, because enjoying the work matters. These days, he can travel more because High Coast has a strong team that can manage production without him. That’s a different kind of legacy: not just bottles, but competence passed on.
Roger said he may be remembered as one of the people who made Box and High Coast whisky.
That’s probably underselling it.
High Coast feels like a distillery that could only have grown out of its place, but also out of Roger’s particular way of thinking. It is technical without being sterile, transparent without being performative, experimental without losing the plot, and serious about whisky without taking the fun out of it.
That’s a rare combination.
What This Episode Is Really About
This episode is about High Coast, but it’s also about what happens when a distillery understands its environment instead of apologizing for it.
A cold northern location could have been a problem. The state monopoly could have been a wall. Swedish whisky could have stayed an oddity for drinkers already committed to the category. Instead, High Coast turned its river, climate, clear wort, technical transparency, wood experiments, and extreme seasonal maturation into a house style.
Roger’s approach isn’t about copying Scotland, Japan, or anyone else. The inspirations are there: Chichibu, Jim McEwan, Alfred Barnard, Michael Jackson, the Scottish west coast, Japanese new make, Swedish brewing culture. But High Coast becomes interesting because those influences are filtered through one very specific place and one very specific distiller’s brain.
And that brain apparently looked at 63°N and thought: yes, but how many more 63s can we fit into this whisky?
That’s the joy of High Coast. The details are there if you want them. The experiments are real. The whisky is good. The place is beautiful. The water is cold. The warehouses do strange seasonal magic. The casks might be square.
There are worse ways to build a legacy.
High Coast Whisky
Website: https://www.highcoastwhisky.se/en
Visit High Coast: https://www.highcoastwhisky.se/en/visit-us
Where to find High Coast Whisky: https://www.highcoastwhisky.se/en/where-to-buy/where-to-buy
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/highcoastwhisky/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/highcoastdistillery
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/high-coast-distillery/
If you haven’t joined the Patreon community yet, please consider doing so at patreon.com/whiskeyinmyweddingring
As of December 2025, the $25/month bottle share club level is sold out!
Join at the $5/month level for first shot at an open spot when a member retires and to keep receiving ad-free episodes via Patreon.
More Show Notes
