This Cooley-sourced 7 year-old single malt is aged for 7 years in ex-bourbon American oak and then finished in Irish porter casks from 5 Lamps Brewery in Dublin. Beer-finished whiskey is not a new idea, but it’s certainly not common. If this trend catches on, prepare yourself for wine-finished cognac, cider-finished calvados, and molasses barrel-finished rum…
The Single Malt from Teeling is a vatting of 5 (or more) difference Irish single malt whiskies of different ages, consisting of whisky aged in – get this – Sherry, Port, Madeira, White Burgundy, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Apparently one of the barrels was filled in 1991 (age approximately 23 years at time of bottling), although I’d guess the rest are in the “slightly under 10” category.
Hyde whisky from Cork newcomer Hibernia Distillers is a range of sourced Irish single-malt and single-grain whiskies … No. 3 is aged in ex-bourbon casks for 6 years without any fancy finish and bottled without chill filtration or added coloring at the “craft” strength of 46% ABV.
The Teeling Single Grain is a grain whiskey which means it is column distilled from a mash of multiple grains, often corn, rye, unmalted and/or malted barley, and wheat and made at a single Irish distillery. In this case, the mashbill was 95% corn and 5% barley and it was distilled at the Cooley distillery (now owned by Beam-Suntory). The whiskey is fully matured in Cabernet Sauvignon casks from Napa, California for “just under” 6 years (legally speaking, that means it is 5 years of age).
Paddy, which claims to be the best-selling whiskey in Ireland, has only recently received wider distribution to the rest of the world … The whiskey itself, a “high-malt” blend of all three styles of Irish whiskey (malt whiskey, single pot still, and column grain whiskey) is triple-distilled, aged between 4 and 7 years, and bottled at 40% ABV.
Connemara is named after a defunct Irish distillery, and the whiskey is produced as Irish whiskey (and Scottish) would have been before the advent of drum maltings: with peat fires. Connemara is reportedly peated at around half the phenol ppm of Islay malt, rendering it milder. There is some confusion about the source of Connemara’s peat…
The Quiet Man, a new brand partnered with Luxco for distribution, is the first Irish whiskey bottled (and soon, distilled) in Derry, Ireland in more than 100 years. While the distillery is under construction (slated for completion around now, early 2018), the brand sources Irish whiskey with a “high” (undisclosed) malt percentage, and marries the blend in first-fill ex-bourbon barrels.
The whiskey was distilled in 1999 and matured exclusively in Caribbean rum casks and bottled without chill filtration at 46% ABV. Only 10,000 bottles of the limited edition were released, and retailed in select countries (not the US) for £85 to £100.
I felt about the standard bottling that it could do with less watering-down, and along comes a Cask Strength sample for me to verify that assumption! Walsh releases a yearly bottling of the Writers’ Tears Cash Strength (around 2000 bottles a year) with a different label and packaging, and it does not appear to ever make it to the US market. The whiskey is aged in first-fill American oak and bottled without chill filtration. The 2014 edition is a respectable (but not extreme) 53% ABV.
Despite the “Powers” name, this release bears little resemblance to the bottom-shelf Powers blend, which is a typical Irish blended whiskey containing both pot-still whiskey and cheap grain whiskey. The John’s Lane bottling is 100% single (formerly “pure”) pot still Irish whiskey. … triple-distilled in copper pot stills by Midleton from a recipe of both malted and unmalted barley and aged for 12 years in ex-bourbon and sherry casks …
