With St Patrick’s Day coming up on 17 March, it seems as good a time as any to catch up with Teeling Whiskey Company’s master distiller, Alex Chasko. We get…
With St Patrick’s Day coming up on 17 March, it seems as good a time as any to catch up with Teeling Whiskey Company’s master distiller, Alex Chasko. We get the latest from the Irish whiskey distillery, and talk progressiveness in production, on-site developments, and what the influx of new distilleries means for the sector.
Are we entering the golden age of Irish whiskey? It certainly seems so. Historically there have been just four distilleries on the island of Ireland: Midleton, Bushmills, Kilbeggan and Cooley. Now there are 18 up and running, with another 16 at the planning permission stage. Growth is poised to be tremendous – and with so many new players coming on to the scene, the character of the category could shift significantly.
One of the newer players – yet with historic roots which can be traced back to 1782 – is the Dublin-based Teeling Distillery. Officially opened in 2015 by brothers Jack and Stephen Teeling, the distillery identifies as “progressive”, with a whopping 25% of its output dedicated to whiskey experiments. Its expressions are pretty tasty, too.
Teeling’s distiller is Alex Chasko, an Oregon-born Heriot-Watt Brewing & Distilling graduate who joined the company from Cooley in 2012. Who better to talk us through the Teeling operations, and give his view on the rapidly transforming Irish whiskey sector of today? Grab a dram (Irish, of course), pull up a pew and let’s get stuck in…
Don’t forget, until St Patrick’s Day you can get £5 off a bottle of Teeling Single Malt, AND win a totally one-of-a-kind fancy-pants single cask expression selected and bottled by Alex himself!