Overeem Collective Release No. 003: A Richer, Smokier Side of Tasmanian Single Malt Whisky.
Some whiskies announce themselves rather loudly. Peat smoke, oak, fortified wine, a serious number on the label. By the time the cork is out, the whisky has usually made its position on the matter abundantly clear.
Overeem has never really needed to shout.
Founded by Casey Overeem in Hobart in 2005, the distillery has spent two decades refining a style built around rich single malt, long maturation and an enduring affection for Port and Sherry casks. Fruit, caramel, dried spice, chocolate, nuts and a certain luxuriant sweetness have become part of its particular vocabulary.
Release No. 003 of the Overeem Collective does something rather more interesting than abandoning that vocabulary.
It lowers the lights.
The latest members-only release brings together Oloroso and Port casks before being finished in bourbon casks cold-smoked with Scottish sweet peat. At 53.3% ABV, it has the requisite credentials for a whisky that intends to be taken seriously, although the number is less interesting than what happens once the whisky is actually in the glass.
The first impression is rich and unmistakably Overeem.
Dark fruit, dried fruit and the sweetness of fortified wine arrive first, followed by caramel, spice and the slightly nutty depth of Sherry maturation. There is weight without heaviness, and sweetness without tipping into confectionery.
Then the smoke appears.
Not as a bonfire. Not as an attempt to turn Hobart into Islay. It arrives more quietly, somewhere behind the fruit and oak, bringing an earthy, savoury edge and a faint char that changes the character of everything around it.
This is the clever part.
Smoke is an easy flavour to overuse because it announces itself so efficiently. Give a whisky enough peat and it will tell you about the peat until you are prepared to discuss almost anything else. The trick is knowing when to stop.
Overeem stops.
The Port remains generous. The Oloroso retains its darker, nuttier character. The underlying fruit does not disappear beneath the peat. Instead, the smoke seems to pull the sweeter elements into slightly deeper territory. Dried fruit becomes darker. Caramel becomes less confectionary and more toasted. Spice becomes more apparent. The whisky acquires a savoury tension that wasn't there before.
It is less a smoky whisky than an Overeem whisky seen through smoke.
That distinction is not unimportant.
Overeem has explored peat before, most notably with its Slightly Peated Sherry Cask Marriage. So Release No. 003 does not arrive as a sudden conversion to the church of peat.
It feels more like the distillery continuing a conversation it has been having quietly for some time, this time allowing the smoke to enter through the cask rather than becoming the dominant feature of the spirit itself.
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows comes to mind, although perhaps only briefly. Tanizaki understood that darkness can reveal qualities that bright light tends to flatten. Texture, depth, patina, atmosphere. Things become less obvious and, consequently, more interesting.
The same is true here.
The smoke does not make the whisky louder. It gives the other flavours somewhere darker to sit.
On the palate, the 53.3% strength provides plenty of concentration. Rich dried fruit and Port sweetness move into caramel, toasted oak and spice, with the smoke gradually becoming more apparent rather than arriving as a blunt first impression. There is a pleasing savouriness beneath the sweetness, and the finish holds onto dark fruit and spice while the peat becomes softer and more atmospheric.
It is a whisky that rewards patience.
Which is appropriate, because patience has always been one of Overeem's more convincing virtues.
The distillery's approach has never been particularly interested in novelty for novelty's sake. Its whiskies are built slowly, with cask selection and maturation doing much of the work. The result is a style that feels less concerned with making a dramatic first impression than with becoming more interesting as the glass empties.
That can be an unfashionable position.
Contemporary whisky has become extremely good at spectacle. Limited editions arrive with elaborate origin stories, elaborate packaging and tasting notes that occasionally require a thesaurus and a fruit market. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of this. Whisky is allowed to have fun. But there is something reassuring about a distillery that seems to regard experimentation as a matter of refinement rather than reinvention.
Release No. 003 is a good example.
The Overeem Collective exists to give its members access to whiskies outside the regular range, and this expression earns that distinction without resorting to gimmickry. Its novelty is not simply that the casks have been smoked. It is that the intervention has been made to serve an established character rather than replace it.
That is a more difficult thing to pull off.
Anyone can make something different.
The more interesting question is whether you can make something different and still make it unmistakably yours.
Overeem can.
Release No. 003 remains rich, generous and slightly indulgent in the way good Overeem tends to be. But there is now something darker moving through it: Smoke, earth, char and a little more restraint. The sweetness is still there, only less complacent. The fruit is still there, only deeper. The whisky has not been transformed so much as unsettled.
And perhaps that is the most interesting thing about it.
After twenty years, Overeem does not need a new identity. It needs only to keep finding new ways of looking at the one it has.
Release No. 003 does precisely that.
It leaves the palate with dark fruit, spice and a lingering thread of smoke, but the smoke is never quite the point. It is the shadow cast by everything else.
A little darker.
A little stranger.
Still Overeem.
For those tempted to join the experiment, the Overeem Collective offers members two exclusive releases a year, alongside access to member pricing across the wider range.
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Words by AW.
Photo courtesy of Overeem.
