Carol Quinn is incredibly pragmatic – a couple of years ago during a chat about the lost distilleries of Cork, I lamented that they were knocked to make way for roads and duplexes and various other developments. Carol – IDL’s archivist – pointed out that unless buildings are being used, they no longer serve a […]
Category: Whiskey
Articles written about and on whiskey.
Black is the colour
Sam Black says his firm’s logo has no real meaning. “It’s what the designer gave us,” he says bluntly when asked about the origins of the silhouette of a crow in flight. When pressed he admits that the image does conveniently tie his story together; he is the Black, while his wife’s maiden name was […]
I took a little money off the table when Beam bought Cooley and I left Cooley four months after the deal, thankfully with no non-compete clause. Myself and my brother Stephen actually own some really old casks of whiskey that we took with us. Then, in 2012 and 2013, a big chunk of inventory became […]
Flight of the Navigator
We all have a journey to whiskey, but for some, it is a more winding path that guides us here. For Daithí O’Connell, sailor, pilot, and founder of WD O’Connell independent bottlers, the journey was geographical as well as spiritual. The 40-year-old Carlow native started his career in hospitality aged just 15, working in a […]
Death and Taxes and Holidays
Salou looks like it was designed for the social media age – all wide boulevards, parrot-populated palm trees, mountainous horizons, historical buildings, and multicoloured, interactive fountains. Everywhere you look there are stunning foregrounds and backdrops for those Insta moments. Even as you walk along the coast to where Salou ends, there are platforms on the […]
#Iconic
I was off on my Scottish jolly when I heard the news – I was nominated for an award. What could it be, I pondered; Prick Of The Year? Gowl Of The Millenium? No, it was Whisky Magazine’s Icons Of Whisky awards – basically the Oscars of getting pissed. I am listed in the Communicator […]
Further Thoughts On Whiskey Tourism
Ah Kilbeggan – Irish whiskey’s Marie Celeste. A distillery that has that perfect blend – the old side is as if it was trapped in time, all dusty and decrepit, full of charm and character. Then there is the actual functioning distillery, compact and bijou, with a little grit and not much glam, but a […]
The Angle’s Share
Friends, I have been to the mountaintop; I have been there and I have looked beyond and I have seen the promised land. In other words – I have seen Scottish whisky tourism at work, in Speyside in 2015 and 2018. At the Spirit of Speyside Festival you can see first-hand just how the entire […]
The Equaliser
It’s Good Friday, and West Cork Distillers is going through an audit for its organic certification. John O’Connell is practically running he is walking so fast. All is going well with the audit; O’Connell seems pleased. Despite breaking the land speed record as he moves from room to room, he still finds the time to […]
The War On Terroir
Can terroir exist in whisky? I like to think it can, but that’s because I choose to. Like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. The idea makes sense to me; but then, I have zero understanding of science, zero understanding of the destructive forces of distillation. So maybe I should take a backseat and shut […]
The Heretic
Mark Reynier believes the Vikings invented whisky. The nomadic distiller claims that, contrary to the common belief that it was Irish monks who discovered it, it was the Vikings who first started to distill barley to make the water of life. Why would monks make such strong spirit, Reynier counters to anyone who objects to […]
The Corrections
There is something oddly Catholic about Non Disclosure Agreements, with their omuerta approach to supply – ‘you can have this, but you can never tell who gave it to you’. These common, legally binding documents meant that for many modern non-distilling Irish whiskey brands, a crucial element of a spirit’s identity was immediately out of […]
Coull runnings
Kerry is Ireland at cask strength. As a Cork man, it pains me greatly to say anything nice about our neighbours to the west, but The Kingdom is a place of raw and startling beauty. Obviously there is a danger here of over-romanticising it, engaging in some noble savage mythos with proto-fascist symbolism of pure […]
Blue blood and brown spirit at Powerscourt Distillery
There are three key strands to any whiskey marketing campaign. First, there is place; your water is the cleanest, your loch is the coldest, your warehouses are kissed by the sea, your home is where the hearts are. Then there are the people; tales of founders, their ancestors, coopers, barrelmen, distillers, gaugers, bootleggers. Finally, there […]
Here be dragons
Grace O’Malley lived – this much we know. The full facts of her story exist in the space between history and folklore, the former telling us that she was a ruthless warrior, a veritable Daenerys Targaryen, but with boats instead of dragons. The latter tells us that she was a pirate queen, oft portrayed in […]
Indo col 105
I sometimes joke that if our house went on fire, the first thing I would save is the computer. I usually qualify this by explaining that obviously, I would drag people out first, but of the personal belongings, the computer would be the only one worth running back into a burning building for. This isn’t […]