Master of Malt Blog

Category: Irish Whiskey

It was 11am in Gatwick airport on Saturday 14th March. The plane taking a small drinks press contingent over to Ireland for Jameson’s extended #HelloDublin St. Patrick’s Day celebrations was…

Hello Dublin Jameson St Patricks Day Live

It was 11am in Gatwick airport on Saturday 14th March. The plane taking a small drinks press contingent over to Ireland for Jameson’s extended #HelloDublin St. Patrick’s Day celebrations was due to leave in just over an hour from Heathrow. Had I made a terrible mistake?

In fact, I’d just arrived back from a holiday and had always known I couldn’t make that flight, just as I knew all I’d be seeing on my return to blighty was Gatwick airport itself. My flight to Cork was later, and until then I’d simply be pretending I was Tom Hanks in The Terminal. (Although there were no Catherine Zeta-Jones love interest developments to speak of.)

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Competitions Irish Whiskey Whisky

Find a Four-Leaf Clover And Win In Our St. Patrick’s Day Competition!

Sam Smith

March 4, 2015 10:00 am

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If you take a glance up at the sky, you might notice that the rolling blanket of grey clouds that we’ve become acquainted with for the past 6 months is…

St Patrick's Day 2015 Irish Whiskey Tasting Set

If you take a glance up at the sky, you might notice that the rolling blanket of grey clouds that we’ve become acquainted with for the past 6 months is sometimes briefly replaced with a flaming ball of hot plasma. That fact that we can catch a glimpse of it means the cosmic grip of winter is waning and spring is on its way to thaw us out.

This also means that St. Patrick’s Day is almost upon us! To celebrate the Feast of Saint Patrick (and the fact that the Sun hasn’t left us and ran off with some other planet like COROT-7b), we’re running a little competition which could result in you getting your hands on some fabulous Irish whiskey!

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Competitions Irish Whiskey Tasting Notes Whisky

Whisky Santa’s Whisky Advent Day 16: Tullamore D.E.W. 12 Year Old

Whisky Santa

December 16, 2014 12:00 am

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Day 16 brings with it a second Irish whiskey in your Whisky Advent Calendars. You’d think the fact Tullamore D.E.W. didn’t have its own distillery between 1954 and 2014 might…

Tullamore D.E.W. 12 Year Old Special Reserve

Day 16 brings with it a second Irish whiskey in your Whisky Advent Calendars. You’d think the fact Tullamore D.E.W. didn’t have its own distillery between 1954 and 2014 might be a slight problem, but the brand became the second best selling Irish whiskey in the world during that time! Owned by William Grant since 2010, spirit has now been running at the Tullamore distillery since September and will in time provide all the spirit they need.

This 12 Year Old Special Reserve of theirs though, it was a travel retail release originally, which tends to get on my Oreamnos americanus. I mean, how many people clock up more air miles than me?! And yet I still can’t get my hands on a number of new releases just because I don’t happen to use inefficient muggle non-supernatural transportation methods. Fortunately, many of these whiskies (including this Tullamore D.E.W.) graduate to their brand’s main ranges. Ho, yes!

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Competitions Irish Whiskey Tasting Notes Whisky

Whisky Santa’s Whisky Advent Day 2: Teeling Small Batch

Whisky Santa

December 2, 2014 9:00 am

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The second day of Whisky Advent is upon us already and what’s behind the second window of the Whisky Advent Calendar?… Why it’s Teeling Small Batch Irish Whiskey! The Teeling…

Teeling Small Batch Irish Whiskey

The second day of Whisky Advent is upon us already and what’s behind the second window of the Whisky Advent Calendar?… Why it’s Teeling Small Batch Irish Whiskey!

The Teeling family were of course the good folk behind the independent Cooley distillery (creating the excellent Connemara Peated single malt and Greenore single grain, for example) before it was eventually bought by Beam. Fortunately, they weren’t away for long and soon released Teeling Small Batch, a blend of selected casks of Irish malt and grain, finished for six months in ex-Flor de Caña Rum casks! In early 2015 they’ll have a shiny new distillery opening in the heart of Dublin too, one of many new projects on the island.

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Irish Whiskey News Whisky

Irish Whiskey Academy

Jake Mountain

September 10, 2014 12:00 pm

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I like a bit of Irish whiskey me. That’s why I made a point of writing a big ol’ three-part blog post about it earlier in the year. So, bearing…

Irish Whiskey Academy

I like a bit of Irish whiskey me. That’s why I made a point of writing a big ol’ three-part blog post about it earlier in the year. So, bearing that in mind, when I received an invitation to attend the Irish Whiskey Academy at Midleton distillery over in County Cork I didn’t really need to think about it for too long. The Academy opened in February 2013 and along with a new still house and archive became a focus for the Irish Distillers’ Housewarming celebrations last year.

The Academy is a state of the art training facility whose courses have been attended by many of the leading whisk(e)y writers, journalists and bartenders. There’s a nice Dave Broom quote on their site that sums it up quite nicely: “I can honestly say that this is the finest training facility I have ever been in, and some of the finest training I have ever had”. That.

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Competitions Irish Whiskey Whisky

Caption Contest #5 – Winners Announced!

Sam Smith

March 17, 2014 12:00 pm

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So it seems there was a Caption Competition announced a couple days ago and we need to declare some winners. I was out of the office on the day it…

Bearded Cat

So it seems there was a Caption Competition announced a couple days ago and we need to declare some winners. I was out of the office on the day it was announced, so imagine my surprise when I returned to find a picture of me training for my upcoming Broadway show CATS (in Ireland) had been used for the competition! I knew I should never have become friends with Jake on Facebook.

Nevertheless, we received a bunch of entries and (using a very scientific method which definitely was not just us chuckling away at our desks) decided on whom shall be receiving each of the three Drinks by the Dram Irish Whiskey Tasting Sets for St. Patrick’s Day!

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Competitions Irish Whiskey Whisky

Caption Contest #5 – Win an Irish Whiskey Tasting Set!

Jake Mountain

March 12, 2014 10:56 am

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To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, we’re giving away THREE of the fantastic Irish Whiskey Tasting Sets from Drinks by the Dram! As with our Clynelish competition last year, to receive…

St. Patrick's Day

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, we’re giving away THREE of the fantastic Irish Whiskey Tasting Sets from Drinks by the Dram!

As with our Clynelish competition last year, to receive full marks we’d like you to actually add your caption to the image below in an internet meme style and then Post it on our Facebook Page. If you google “meme generator” there are plenty of sites that’ll do the technical bit for you, so you don’t have to be a whizz on Photoshop or anything, just a whizz at captioning things!

Enter by 3pm on Friday 14th March to be in with a chance of winning, then we’ll select our 3 favourites to each win a set. So, all you have to do now is decide what Sam‘s been getting up to lately. Over to you…

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Irish Whiskey News Whisky

Irish Whiskey – Everything You Need To Know! (Part 3)

Jake Mountain

February 14, 2014 12:00 pm

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Blimey, it’s Friday already! A Valentine’s Day Friday, no less! Well, today we only have eyes for delicious Irish Whiskey as we move onto the third and final instalment of…

Ireland

Blimey, it’s Friday already! A Valentine’s Day Friday, no less! Well, today we only have eyes for delicious Irish Whiskey as we move onto the third and final instalment of this bumper blog post.

Back at the start of Part 1, I mentioned Teeling Whiskey Company‘s recently confirmed plans to build a new distillery in Dublin, the first in 125 years. This post will cover this and many other projects that could see the number of distilleries in Ireland double, treble, or perhaps even quadruple!

First though, I’ll try to briefly run through some other news and developments, starting with the fact that in 2011 Beam Inc. bought Cooley, introducing another big player alongside the giants of Pernod Ricard and Diageo and leaving Ireland without an independent distillery once again (albeit briefly…).

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Irish Whiskey Tasting Notes Whisky

Irish Whiskey – Everything You Need To Know! (Part 2)

Jake Mountain

February 13, 2014 12:00 pm

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Yesterday, I began my serialised guide to Irish Whiskey with a rundown of its turbulent history through some difficult times, becoming the most popular spirit in the world before nearly…

Ireland

Yesterday, I began my serialised guide to Irish Whiskey with a rundown of its turbulent history through some difficult times, becoming the most popular spirit in the world before nearly disappearing altogether in the 20th century! Fortunately, it has been on a road to recovery in the last few decades and is now thriving.

Despite this resurgence, which has made Irish Whisky the fastest growing drinks category in the world, Scotch whisky still comfortably sells 15 times more cases worldwide, and has about as many times more active distilleries too. With Scotch whisky’s dominance since the 1930s, there’s perhaps understandably still some confusion, even amongst whisk(e)y enthusiasts, surrounding the styles of Irish whiskey available.

Fret not, however! In this second instalment I’ll be looking at each style in turn, complete with a number of yummy examples of each!

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Irish Whiskey Whisky

Irish Whiskey – Everything You Need To Know! (Part 1)

Jake Mountain

February 12, 2014 12:02 pm

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Ireland

Last week Teeling Whiskey Company (who have the tagline ‘The Spirit of Dublin’) officially announced that they’re set to bring whiskey distillation back to Dublin, something that’s been in the pipeline for some time now. Jameson, meanwhile, are already looking ahead to St. Patrick’s Day with a new limited edition packaging design (with the tagline ‘The Spirit of Dublin’ – well, they couldn’t let those pesky newcomers cause anybody to forget Jameson’s own Dublin roots, could they?!). These are interesting times over on the Emerald Isle, and it seems like an ideal moment to shine a massive ol’ spotlight on Irish Whiskey, something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now.

So, what’s it all about? What else is new? Herein lies all you need to know about the fastest growing spirits category in the world; from the history, to the styles of whiskey available, through to more recent developments and news. This is the tale of the rise and struggle and rise and rise and monumental collapse and hanging on in there and rise of delicious Irish whiskey!

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Master of Malt Blog

Category: Irish Whiskey