Geography counts in making Irish whiskey
It’s strange to think that a little over 30 years ago Diageo wanted to buy Irish Distillers and close it down. Sure, Irish whiskey was in the doldrums and had been for decades, but Diageo wanted to prevent any threat to their vast Scotch interests that an Irish renaissance would bring. Fortunately, Pernod-Ricard managed to acquire the company and invested heavily in Irish whiskey when most commentators believed it didn’t have any significant future. And, of course, it has paid off for the French-based multinational. Such has been the growth in whiskey sales, spearheaded by the Jameson brand, that some are predicting it will overtake Scotch in the US market by 2030.
Before Prohibition, Irish whiskey outsold Scotch in North America by a considerable margin. In recent years there has been a rush to open distilleries. But there has been an even greater rush to create brands. Most of the newer Irish brands are merely labels, the whiskey being sourced from one of a very small number of distilleries.
Hence, perhaps, the obsession with ‘finishes’, that is the casks in which the whiskey has been aged before bottling. It used to be simple: Irish whiskey tended to be aged in ex-Bourbon casks, followed by time in sherry, port or madeira wood. Now the industry scours the globe for other casks: Bordeaux, Amarone, Muscatel, Barolo. OK, I’m not sure about Barolo, but it’s only a matter of time. And, oh yes, stout.
Can it be that there’s a touch of emperor’s new clothes here? Is it that there’s a lot of whiskey, all of which is much the same, depending on age, and there’s an imperative to create differences? I don’t know.
Mark Reynier of Waterford has a very clever solution: distilling very small batches from specific sites around the country and selling it on the basis of what the French call terroir. And I can confirm that these whiskeys differ the one from the other very substantially. Yes, they are expensive, but malting small batches costs an arm and a leg.
Dingle has been distilling since 2012 and their whiskeys have all been aged in the distinct microclimate of that part of Kerry. Irish Distillers mature theirs in Midleton and near Dungourney in East Cork while Teeling’s mature in Dublin. There must be subtle differences imparted by these geographical factors.