All About Our New J.J. Corry X Kentucky Owl Bourbon Collaboration (First Up its 100% Bourbon)

The wonderful thing about whiskey, is that it flows through history, connects cultures and is inextricably linked with people and places. My job as a whiskey bonder is to create the most diverse Library of Irish Whiskey Flavours in the world. I do that by sourcing whiskey spirit from distilleries all over Ireland and pairing them with casks from cooperages, distilleries and wineries all over the world. If you follow me on socials at all you’ll see I spend a good chunk of time in Kentucky. That’s because I source first fill casks directly from there and am always on the hunt for flavour. The Flavour profile of The Hanson derives much of its vibrancy from the juicy first fill bourbon casks it goes in to. Every drop of J.J. Corry will have just a whisper of the flavour of whatever was in the cask prior.

Master Blender, John Rhea & Louise McGuane Founder & Whiskey Bonder J.J. Corry

So, when Kentucky Owl approached me in relation to a potential collaboration I jumped at the chance. I had long admired Kentucky Owl which had since its launch garnered a cult like following in the U.S.A. Their business model is not dissimilar to our own and I had in fact studied it closely when I started J.J. Corry. They wanted me to work with them to create a 100% bourbon whiskey in honour of St. Patricks Day.

Now you might think that its somewhat cynical to make an American Whiskey for St. Patricks Day but think again. The ties between Ireland and Kentucky are inextricable and go as far back as the state’s history. The Irish were instrumental first in building the State and later as they became more affluent in administering it. The West of Ireland in particular has very specific ties to Kentucky.  There is a neighbourhood in Louisville called ‘Limerick’ which is where, you guessed it, many people from Limerick settled whilst building the railroads.  Let us not forget that Louisville’s most famous citizen Muhammed Ali’s ancestry was officially traced back to Ennis Co. Clare and he even Came over to visit prior to his death.  So, for me this collaboration is a nod to those ancestral ties that bind but also to our shared history of Whiskey Making.

John Rhea & Louise McGuane Talking Open Top Fermentation

There can be no Irish Whiskey today without Kentucky Bourbon, but simultaneously there would be no Kentucky Bourbon in the first place if it wasn’t for Irish Whiskey. It was Irish & Scottsh immigrants who arguably began the roots of distillation in Kentucky & Tennessee in the 1800’s. Today in Ireland just about every whiskey producer uses ex-bourbon barrels to mature Irish Whiskey, it has been so for a quite some time and there is a simple reason behind it. Ireland is a largely deforested country, we lost most of our native oak in the 1700’s during the ‘Age of Sail’ when the thirst for shipbuilding meant oak was needed. As a result we had to import wood to make casks largely from Eastern Europe or France, and eventually this led to simply importing or just upcycling used casks from the places we were importing wines or spirits, like the Caribbean for rum or Jerez for Sherry.  In the 1900’s as shipping routes between America and Europe improved and the Bourbon industry took off we began importing used bourbon casks and somehow it stuck. So now the industries have come full circle.

Amongst The Casks at Bardstown

Headed to the Rickhouse in Bardstown to Select Casks

Limited Edition Kentucky Owl X J.J. Corry St. Patrick’s Day Edition/// 100% Bourbon

This is why whiskey is so intriguing it connects cultures and continues to flow through the twists and turns in History and that is largely why I wanted to do this collaboration. That and working with John Rhea.

The deal went like this, I would get access to a large section of their own collection of bourbons and could pick and choose the empty casks I wanted to bring to Ireland for maturing J.J. Corry stocks. Normally my role as an Irish Whiskey Bonder would end there, but, and this is the kicker, they then wanted me to take those bourbon stocks and to work with John Rhea their Master Blender on a 100% Bourbon Blend for launch around St. Patrick’s Day. Here’s how that process went and its gonna get technical so hold on as its paraphrased from my notes to John.  

We began with individual bourbon samples. These were tasted blind and sensorially through the lens of what we would look for when sourcing casks for individual stocks we currently have. These were narrowed down and then tasted/nosed side by side with distillate we have in stock with a view to assessing compatibility.

Basically we were trying to imagine what if this particular Irish Distillate spent 7 years in a casks like this what echo of flavour would we get? I leant heavily towards some of the more wheat forward samples. This is possibly because of a recent foray here at J.J. Corry into sourcing that kind of stock. That is evident in the final blend we produced.  

Then the blending began and here is where I had the great honour of working with John Rhea, a legend in Bourbon circles. The man who in modern times put Four Roses on the map and a sensory genius. We went as you do through many iterations of the final blend which ranged in age from 4 to 12 years old and came from several distilleries. We landed it at 100 Proof or 50% ABV and it is available right now.

As for the Kentucky Owl influenced J.J. Corry, you will have to wait some years for that I’m afraid. We’ve filled those casks with a combination of Pot Still, Malt and Grain and now we wait.

Here are my Tasting Notes for the Kentucky Owl X J.J. Corry Collaboration You can Buy it HERE. You can buy J.J. Corry HERE.

Tasting Notes:: Long, notes of caramel, butterscotch, frosted cinnamon roll. Chocolate orange, candy floss, and into some citrus peel. A bright forest fruit on the mid palate and a long lingering finish with vanilla pod and some balanced wood influence.

Recreating a Whiskey Bonding Journey for the First Time in over a Century in the Shannon Voyage #whiskeybonder

When I started J.J. Corry there were only three distilleries producing whiskey on the Island of Ireland.  Today there are thirty something. As a whiskey bonder my job is to curate a library of whiskey flavours so that as we mature and blend those stocks we have a varied pallet of flavours to draw from over time. This is what differentiates us from a distillery, we have a still to glass approach, and a wide variety of flavours for the end blend. My goal is to have the most diverse collection of Irish Whiskey stocks on the Island eventually.  This work will come to fruition in the coming years as our stocks diversify and our scope for blending grows. We’ve already dabbled in this by releasing The Hanson, to my knowledge the only “Blended Grain” in the Irish category to date. A very natural release for us given our approach to whiskey making. I foresee blended pot-still, blended malt, and many other iterations of this as time goes on for J.J. Corry.

The Ilen Sails in to Pick up Our Cargo!

Right now its pretty good fun to be a whiskey bonder, there are so many new independent producers coming online with new ideas, revolutionary approaches and counter old school Irish whiskey culture ideas. I Love It. I seek out folks who are taking a non-traditional approach to work with. I already have some pretty fantastic non-Irish Whiskey GI compliant wheat based distillate in the rackhouse and I hope to have more soon. These casks won’t be destined for release as “Irish Whiskey” but they can of course be called “whiskey” as they tick all the other boxes and that’s ok by me! Do I love a bit of innovation and disruption in the industry?  Of course, I love it because it means I am part of a vibrant, evolving and modern industry and that is the kind of industry I want to work in. Does this attitude mean I eschew the past and deny tradition? No, at JJ Corry we respect tradition, but we embrace change.

So, when I chatted to Nick Ryan when he visited us here in Cooraclare I was interested to hear about his Limerick Whiskey project. In my mind its an approach based in that very whiskey specific concept known as a “Sense of Place” and it has a nice bang of terrior and heritage around it too.  I tasted his pot still distillate which is distilled from Limerick Grown Grain commissioned by Nick and I knew I wanted to have it in my flavour library. I also knew that I wanted to do something special around it, as there is a very tight historic connection to what Nick is doing in Limerick and what I am doing in Cooraclare.

Captain Mike Creates a Cradle for the Cask

When J.J. Corry ran his shop in Henry Street from 1890 onwards the town of Kilrush benefited from its enviable location along the then vibrant commercial waterway of the Shannon river. Steam packets ran almost daily from Cappagh Pier to Steamboat Quay in the heart of Limerick City. They ferried tourists in the Summer and goods and sundries year-round. In J.J. Corry’s heyday of whiskey blending there were no distilleries left in Clare, the closest in terms of transport links was Thomond Gate Limerick located on the banks of the Shannon a straight run down the river to Cappagh on any given day. The steam packets of the 1890’s and early 1900’s are gone as is Thomond Gate distillery. I would argue though the spirit of this connection is now very alive and well. Nick has revived the Thomond Gate brand and although he does not have his own distillery just yet he is doing in a way that embodies the soul and the earth of Limerick by focusing on the raw materials that go into this very Limerick Spirit.

As our industry goes through its great market correction, and we begin to rebuild it from the ashes of near collapse in the early 1900’s, many heritage brands are being revived. Some have meaning and some don’t I work hard to make sure J.J. Corry stands for something and I know that Nick does too for Thomond Gate. This is why after sourcing some new make from him I called him up and suggested we celebrate it in a way that pays homage to both our brands past. I wanted to recreate the original journey that Thomond Gate Limerick Whiskey would have taken to Kilrush and into J.J. Corry’s shop and that was via the Shannon River. Initially I planned a big media event with lots of folks on the ship and a dinner and all sorts, but of course that was not possible. There are covid restricting and also we had to work with a timeline because the Ilen Ketch had agreed to transport this cargo for us and they operate to a strict schedule.

The Ilen is an historic and magnificent ship, its home port is Limerick, and it operates as a community and educational vessel, this journey brought to light the historic connections between the lower and upper Shannon. The Shannon Voyage was agreed upon for yesterday May 18^th upon based on weather and tides. So yesterday the Ilen sailed into Limerick to Steamboat Quay apparently the first time its done so under full sail in 50 years, and we loaded it with an ex-bourbon first fill cask containing Limerick Spirit. After a four hour sail it docked at Cappagh Pier, Kilrush and my neighbour Paddy Harvey expertly unloaded it. It was met by quite a few folks some of whom reminisced about how vibrant the pier once was others wanted to showcase goods that would have passed up and down the Shannon in J.J. Corry’s time. It became a real community event.  

 It was a wonderful day and a wonderful celebration of Irish Whiskies rebirth. Nick and I are modern whiskey entrepreneurs celebrating the past whilst very much looking forward and I think this approach is the future of Irish Whiskey.  I’m very glad to have Limerick based spirit as part of our library and I have some interesting re-casking plans in place for it over the coming years.

We just launched the World’s First Tequila/Mezcal Influenced Irish Whiskey #CinqoDeMayo

I chose Mexican Fiesta Colours for the Label

Right well, there we are then. I’ve just managed to be the first Irish Whiskey Co. to launch an Irish Whiskey incorporating Mezcal and Tequila casks…..I do not think I will be the last…..

There are a few reasons for this, first of all, a Mexican family own one of our better known distilleries… and second of all the flavour profile of both these spirits is very hard to resist. Let me be very clear here, this is not a gimmicky ‘look at me’ release. This is something I thought about for a long time based on a desire to marry two flavour profiles that I absolutely love. As a bonder, I don’t distil and I never will, so I have to influence my sourced whiskies flavour in different ways. This is just what JJ Corry did in the 1890’s he had access to casks from all over the British Empire and bought rum, sherry, port, and Bordeaux casks and used those because that’s what he had access to back then. As a modern whiskey bonder with a global outlook, I have the privilege to be able to look farther afield. We live in a globalised world after all.

I have long been a fan of tequila, back in the day, I used to work on Don Julio and had the great pleasure of visiting the agave fields and distillery in Jalisco, Mexico. In the USA and indeed in Mexico; tequila is a more refined drink than perhaps it is over here in Europe. We have been catching on that the past few years, but if you think Limes & Salt and knocking it back when you hear the word tequila, you are doing it wrong.

The Agave plant is the base for both tequila and mezcal, although mezcal is made with a different varietal to tequila. Agave has a lovely vegetal herbal quality about it, and in good tequila this can really shine, put a little maturation on it and you get an incredibly refined spirit. Mezcal has seen explosive growth in recent years and I came to it only recently. I travel to the USA a lot and have had the chance to taste hapes of the stuff and learned about it initially from bartenders. When I started to really explore it, I realised that the production of mezcal is still mostly done by families in rural areas, its almost poitin like in its ethos and I loved that.

I started poking about into the connection between Ireland and Mexico and landed on the history of the Battalion Saint Patricos. This was a group of Irish men who defected from the American Army to fight on the side of the Mexicans in the Mexican/American War in the 1860’s. They were largely comprised of men from the West Coast of Ireland and indeed led by a Galway Man. I bought a few books and read all about this really interesting piece of history and I thought what better name than The Battalion for this whiskey as an homage to those brave men.

So, I decided last year to do a little experiment, while I was visiting a cooperage in Maine that I work with, I came across some tequila and mezcal casks.  I didn’t in this case go to Mexico for casks as I only wanted 4 casks to have a play with. I figured if it went well, I’d head down to Mexico, (it has and I’m planning a trip for the 2^nd batch to source casks directly.) I put some 9 year old grain into the tequila and mezcal casks and pulled a 13 year old malt and put it into the mezcal. In the end they were in there for 8 months in total.

When you are extracting cask influence you never really know what is going to happen, especially if it has not been done before. Initially I was hoping to pull loud Mesquite smoke flavours from the mezcal cask, but it didn’t work out that way. Instead we saw delicious herbal notes coming through, so we decided to focus on that and blend the grain into a ratio of tequila/mexcal that we liked and then went ahead and added the malt.  The result then is what I’m calling a Cask Influenced whiskey, because its not a straight ‘Finish.’  As bonders that is an important differentiation, I want to ensure we are influencing the end whiskey at every possible touch point, and with this I feel we really have. I chose super bright Mexican fiesta colours for the label cause its really fun and we put a day of the dead style skull on the neck label, because it sort of reminds me of the Irish pagan symbol for Sile Na Gig.

In the end we went for a 60% grain 40% malt Blend at 41% ABV. Its only 700 bottles and its now on full allocation, it’ll be released in the UK, Germany and Ireland with maybe a tiny bit of the first batch going to the USA and a bigger second batch to follow. I’m super excited about this one, the first of our experimental cask influences, the first of many I hope.

Now its off to Mexico to source more casks for batch 2!

Why Does the Irish Whiskey Industry Not have Coopers?

Eugene Quinlan Master Cooper With His Cousins Tools

I was at the Box Distillery in Sweden last week for the World Whiskey Forum. It was a gathering of those of us looking to push the boundaries in regard to innovation in whiskey. Between us we are shaping what the future of whiskey is going to look like and its pretty exciting stuff. I was the only person from Irish Whiskey in attendance, which was a surprise. All the other modern whiskey producing countries, Japan, Scotland, USA, UK, Sweden, Norway and even Iceland were well represented. It was a tremendous gathering of producers and I came away with some great new friends and some fantastic inspiration which I’m putting into action this week. Every single one of these whiskey producing countries has something in common. All of them have a thriving cooperage industry to support their thriving whiskey industry. All of them except my own fair Isle; Ireland.

Hanging With The Coopers

To rub salt into this wound, Diageo randomly decided last week that February 10th was International Scotch Day…To celebrate it they got some 20 year old celebrity girl (Sorry I’m old I don’t know who she is…) to pose in a beautiful gown with a gaggle of manly looking Scottish Coopers. On social media the celebrity girl waxed lyrical about the generations of Coopers in the Photo and how wonderful they are and what an important element of scotch coopering is. This is not a photo we could replicate here in Ireland, not even if I put on my best ballgown ( I have a few Vivian Westwoods’ Myself) and did a ring around among all the coopers I know, which is two by the way. Those two are 50% of all the Master Coopers on the Island of Ireland.  For those of you bad at math, there are FOUR master coopers working on the Island of Ireland. Two work for multinationals so cannot offer their services to others formally. One John Neilly works at the small but nimble Nephin Cooperage which is a great initiative and the other Eugene Quinlan works with me. Eugene comes from a long line of coopers; six generations in fact. His advice is invaluable to me as I plan out my wood program for many years to come. I don’t know how other whiskey producers work without him or someone like him. (Eugene if you are reading this, your phone may begin to ring this week…..)

Bearing in mind we will soon be exporting half a BILLION euros worth of Irish Whiskey. Do we really think we have enough Master Coopers or apprentice coopers to tend to all the casks involved here in Ireland?? How does Irish Whiskey expect to continue to be taken seriously without a functioning Cooperage Industry?  Why are most new companies ignoring this essential element of whiskey production? So many questions folks!

None of the new multinationals in the game have started Cooperages’ to my knowledge…Diageo did NOT announce a cooperage alongside its George Roe distillery. Beam Suntory, William Grant, Brown Forman, Quintessential Brands, Sazerac;  all of these multinationals are building distilleries or releasing Irish Whiskey, NONE OF THEM ARE BUILDING COOPERAGES.  Why? Why? I need  cooper to advise me on cask quality, selection and ongoing care. I could decide to eyeball this, but would rather ask someone who has completed a 6 year apprenticeship and has 40 years of experience…Why is Ireland so special as a whiskey producing nation that we don’t need  coopers? The simple answer is we are not, and we need to take a long hard look at ourselves.

As whiskey makers in Ireland we need to decide if we are in the game simply to capitalise on the growth of the category and to grow a business and make big bucks on the back of fleeting consumer demand, some players are; that is clear. There is a bit of a Property Boom, Celtic Tiger thing going on it seems like…..

OR are we in it to, yes build a great business and brand, but also to build the industry and its supporting industries’ back up and ensure we are all future proof?

I have put everything on the line to acquire my whiskey spirit and I need to be Damn sure the cask the liquid goes into is the highest quality possible and that it is properly cared for. I need a cooper and so does anyone else who is making whiskey on the Island of Ireland in my opinion. No its not cheap and its an extra expense as a start-up, but I would rather pay for a skilled craftsman to care for my casks and plan my wood program than  cut corners for accountancy sake and just to fire some Cooley Stock out there without any thought. My heart and soul is in this business. I gave up a Six figure salary for a Zero figure salary, and God knows in addition to my long suffering husband at the end of his financial tether knows that I need to make this business work on a fiscal level, but I still want to do it right.

I believe in it so much that I am converting a 16th century barn on our site into a working cooperage for our ‘Journeyman’ Cooper. I brought back Irish Whiskey Bonding to this Island and now I will bring back the Journeyman Cooper Trade. Eugene’s 85 year old cousin sold us his cooperage tools, some of which are 150 years old. We’ll restore and use some of these and display others in our little cooperage. We’ll use these historic tools to educate people on the history importance of Coopering to the Irish Whiskey Industry. The tools are in a bag in the office right now. They embody 200 years of coopering and Quinlan family history. I’m glad we have them but its bittersweet. It is sad that Eugene’s cousin could not pass them down to his sons like this father, grandfather  and great grandfather before him. He had no-one to pass them to because cooperage is close to extinction in this country.

I want to build a great business and a great brand, but I also want to see this industry thrive in the long term. We need to innovate to ensure Irish Whiskey has relevance moving forward. But innovation should not happen for its own sake, it should have its roots in tradition. For me it means some Ninja Coopering and for that I need a Master Cooper.

Watch this space, if I have my way I’ll be posing in a ballgown with a  whiskey in hand in front of the next generation of Irish Coopers within 5 years.

 

Without Trees There is No Whiskey

Trees, casks and cooperage in that order are on my mind this week for a few reasons. I’m putting in an order to my guys in Kentucky for some juicy ex bourbon casks for our next batch of New Fill, second I’m planning a trip to Portugal to have a look at some other interesting vessels and third I have a visit coming up this week from one the only working Master Coopers left on the Island of Ireland. I understand there are four Master Coopers left here. Ger Buckley down in Midelton, John Neilly is coopering for Nephin from his base in Kilbeggan. Jose Cuervo have someone at Bushmills too.  Pernod Ricard and Jose Cuervo have brought on apprentices in recent years but 2 more apprentices do not a dying industry make.

Making whiskey is or should be an holistic process. Everything from the grain of the wood that makes the staves of the barrels to the source of the water used to cut it is what makes this wonderful liquid. I’m all about the wood at the moment, and because of my upcoming Master Cooper meeting I started to dig into the backstory about Irish woodlands and how it affected the whiskey industry and the art of cooperage,

Here in Ireland  up to the Bronze age about 90% of Ireland was covered in forestry. Much of it was oak and giant oak at that. Even into the early Christian era swathes of the country were covered in trees, with many place names deriving from the abundance of them. Mayo (Meigh  Eo) “plain of the yews” etc. The hardcore deforestation really kicks in during the Medieval period. Blast furnaces sprung up across Ireland with huge industrial works located in Derry, Wexford, Leitrim and Laois all of which had good proximity to the woodland necessary to produce charcoal for smelting. Glassworking then begins to add to the pressure on forestry as does shipbuilding and indeed cooperage. By 1603 when Elizabeth the 1^st died, tree cover in Ireland was estimated at 2%. Even so, shipbuilding was really taking off at that time and the East India Trading Co. established a shipyard in Cork. All of this combined with a four-fold increase in population between 1700 and 1840, led to the fact that any appreciable forests existing in Ireland in 1600 were GONE by 1800. Yes GONE.

You know why I’m buying my barrels from Kentucky and Portugal and anywhere but here? It’s not because the native species here is not conducive to ageing whiskey, several original species are.  It is not because its traditional in the true sense. It’s because we ran out of trees. Back in the 1800’s we started importing casks to age our whiskey in from abroad because we had no choice. We chopped down all the trees people. We chopped down all the goddam trees.

Afforestation has been ticking along since about 1930 with Irish the free state. A big push was made in the 80’s with a grant scheme for farmers to plant their ‘lands marginal for agriculture but suitable for forestry.’  This led to large swathes of peatbog being designated suitable. Many thousands of hectares of now lost biodiversity fell sway to monoculture planting of non-indigenous conifer species.  They went with these species as technically you can harvest them faster than broad leafs. We have about 25 hectares of it here on the farm ourselves. I remember planting some of it with my Dad. It is my intention never to chop it down, even though I’m sad about all the bog it sucked up.

In fact, the 700,000 hectares (about 10% of landmass) that have been planted since the Afforestation drive began is 75% conifer. Conifer is great yes, it is good that we are bringing back our trees, but it’s the broadleaf species like oak, birch, hazel alder etc. we need back. We need them for biodiversity and you know what? I need them for whiskey.

How sad is it that Pernod Ricard’s “Dair Ghaelach” (which is a great whiskey, no doubt) touts itself as “The First Ever Irish Whiskey to Be Finished in Virgin Irish Oak Hogsheads.” It’s sad because it is kind of true, in that virgin Irish Oak has not been used since 1800 because we ran out of it. I have no doubt virgin Irish Oak was used prior to that for whiskey but they have a fair marketing stance there. Let’s remember that every single bottle of Kentucky Bourbon sold is aged in virgin American oak, it should not be THAT big of a selling point, if only we had our own woodland. There is a push here by The Forest Service who manage forestry, towards planting sustainable long-term broadleaf species with a view to having biodiverse and productive forestry industry. Sadly, I don’t expect there to be a sustainable supply to service the Irish Whiskey industry in my lifetime. “However as they say Big Things come from tiny acorns.” I’m hoping to discuss something long term but super interesting with my Master Cooper this week.

Stay Classy San Diego! Thoughts from The Craft Distilling Conference 2016

Our Rye Whiskey Workshop in Trent’s Little Distillery 

I’m in San Diego this week for the Annual Craft Distillers Conference. Its a gathering of the great and good in this growing category. There are now over 900 licensed craft distillers in the U.S the barrier to entry to distilling in the U.S. is close to nothing compared to that in Ireland and this has fuelled serious growth nationally over the past decade. The craft distilling movement is following the same growth trajectory as craft beer and there is no end in sight. States are starting to soften legislation around direct sales and there is enough grass roots pressure to change limiting laws allowing for serious commercialisation. ARE YOU LISTENING IRISH GOVERNMENT?????

This is my second time at this conference and I’m here because these guys are about 15 years ahead of us in Ireland and Europe when it comes to the disruptive craft spirits making model. So its the perfect opportunity to see what is trending and most importantly its a great chance to learn. I did a Rye Whiskey making workshop on Monday at the San Diego Distillery. The distillery is located in a 642 sq foot garage and founder and master distiller Trent Tilton began making whiskey, rum and Eu de Vie last May. He was formerly a brewer so is technically quite gifted when it comes to Mash Bills and fermentation and this translates well to distillation. He has a killer custom make little 100 gallon pot and column combi still made by StillDragon and  produces and sells award winning Rye and Single Malt whiskey like its going out of style.

Unlike in Ireland there is no age requirement on Trent’s whiskey, so his youngest whiskey is about 3 months old and his oldest is not yet a year. Also unlike in Ireland of course he is maturing in New American oak. Like many American craft distillers he uses 5 an 10 gallon barrels for this. By doing so he can intensify the maturation process as there is more wood contact with the liquid with these smaller barrels. He also has the weather working for him. All his stock is aged in his little garage and of course San Diego temperatures hit well over 30º regularly in the summer, even more when you consider he has the still running adding even more heat to the place. All these conditions, the new oak, the tiny barrels and the high temperatures & fluctuations mean his whiskey takes on more ‘mature’ characteristics a lot faster. It also means he has an income stream and can begin to lay down whiskey for longer time periods whist ensuring he can keep his lights on.

In Ireland technically we can’t emulate Trent’s model. We have a 3 year and one day minimum maturation wait to produce “Irish Whiskey”. I’m in favour of this as it sets down an ongoing precedent and differentiation for ‘Irish Whiskey.’ Its important that we have our appellation protected.  It is limiting though and does kind of suck out some of the potential creativity and excitement from the world of “Irish Whiskey”.Right now all the mature whiskey on the market from new Irish distilleries is basically from the old Cooley Reserves because like Trent everyone needs to keep the lights on and there is only one place to buy old “Irish Whiskey”. This is why a lot of people make gin and vodka to get going.However a core pillar of my company is innovation and I’ll be honest, I am jealous of the freedom that Trent and all the guys here have, they seem to be having a lot of fun and making great quality whiskey. I too need to keep the lights on and I won’t be making gin any time soon. I do however have a cunning plan which this trip has helped to solidify in my mind……

Sand, Sea and Searching for Barrels

Peniche on the West Coast of Portugal

Starting a business is, well, a lonely business.  I don’t miss working for huge corporations, but when I did, I was much better at ‘Switching Off’. Now that I work for myself there is no-one else to rely on, the future of this company depends on me, so every moment spent not working is guilt ridden. So, when old Diageo Buddies of mine got married last week in Portugal I decided to combine a little work and leisure travel, its known as “Bleisure” travel. I met  an old friend of mine on the East Coast of Portugal for a spot of surfing intermingled with some cask searching. In the morning we surfed, and in the afternoon we hopped in the car to visit wineries and old distilleries to make connections and find some used barrels. One of the most captivating places we went to was ‘Quinta do Sanguinhal’ in Bombarral. This winery/distillery has been run by the same family for four generations. They have a phenomenal old distillery on one of their sites, once used to make brandy for the Port industry. The impressive column still built in the late 1800’s was in use right up until the 1980’s when it was replaced by more modern equipment, its a craft distillers dream, all steampunk and ingenious. The place has a great connection with county Clare where we are based. Apparently one of the owners of  Irelands largest wholesaler, based in Co. Clare, had a house nearby. He fell in love with their wine and decided to import it, as a result Ireland was one of the winery’s biggest markets for quite some time. More than anything though, I loved their approach to winemaking and their focus on family. My aim in this venture is to make great whiskey and secure a future for the family farm. I would love to imagine that someday my great granddaughter will be giving tours and telling tales of how we started the business. As wonderful as it was listening to the story of the winery and tasting the wines this was a “Bleisure” trip. I was sure to get a  good understanding of their cooperage and their barrel usage. They use mostly high quality new French Oak to age their red and fortified wines and the Portuguese grape varietals are really interesting, there are no Merlot’s or Cabernet Sauvignons here. This leads to some unique characteristics in their first and second fill barrels, which could be interesting for us. All in all a heck of a trip and between all the surfing and wine tasting, I didn’t feel guilty for one second…