The Social Drinker

On whiskey

This column was recently sent a bottle from the first commercial batch of whiskey distilled by the Dingle Whiskey Distillery. I tend to stay away from this sort of thing, preferring to review drinks that are easy to come by or easy to make, but this is a very interesting whiskey, because it the first new single malt Irish whiskey from a completely independent distillery in a generation.

Most “new” whiskies are currently being made using distillates created by John Teeling’s ground-breaking Cooley Distillery several years ago, before the saviour of Irish whiskey sold out to an American rival.

Dingle is the real thing; a new whiskey made from start to finish by a group of experienced distillers who have made the stuff, waited several years, and are now in a position to sell their own product, which they have deliberately distilled to taste different to their mainstream rivals.

In time, many other distillers will be able to do the same, but right now, drinking a dram of Dingle is like staring into the future of the Irish whiskey industry. And the future is looking bright.

To begin with appearances, Dingle looks somewhat paler than most whiskies (yellow rather than orange) but the real difference is taste, which is much lighter than any Irish whiskey I know, but with a long, satisfying aftertaste.

This is quite unlike most whiskies on sale in Ireland, and rightly so. Why somebody would go to the not inconsiderable trouble of making a whiskey that replicates what is already on the market is a mystery. But it often happens.

Today, it is possible to buy a bottle of Dingle from a limited number of outlets for around €65, which is undoubtedly a little pricey, but it is not often one can drink a little history in the making.