In the second of three features asking ‘what is Irish whiskey? ’Dave Broom gets caught up in Cooley
Now, mind your head!” Just as well he said that. The roof beams could have delivered a nasty crack to the skull as we wander further into the gloom, the sonorous voice of the guide almost drowned out by the burbling of the steam engine which is now giving it mighty licks.
We emerge, blinking slight...
By Dave Broom
from Issue 70 published on
In part one of a three part series, Dave Broom looks at the changing face of Irish whiskey.
It used to be so simple. Irish whiskey, so we were told, was an unpeated, tripledistilled spirit. During the years, however, these certainties have been challenged. Today, Ireland has three distillers. All make Irish whiskey, yet they all do it differently. Blends, triple-distilled single malt, doub...
By Dave Broom
from Issue 69 published on 18/01/2008
Ireland’s only independent distillery has had a rollercoaster time since it was established at the end of the ’80s.Now it’s time to deliver,its chairman tells Dominic Roskrow
It’s time to change the record. Time to take off New Kid In Town by The Eagles and replace it with James Brown’s It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World. Or, and let’s not be too cynical about this, Abba’s Money, Money, Money. Time to grow up, stop looking for excuses and come of age.
I hope Cooley chairman...
By Dominic Roskrow
from Issue 57 published on 21/07/2006
The Midleton distillery in Cork is the engine room of Irish Distillers and it’s like no other distillery on earth. Dominic Roskrow reports
Talk about whisky from islands off the west coast of Scotland and you tend to think Islay, Skye, Mull and Jura.
The biggest western isle of them all is starting to make some serious waves when it comes to the art of distilling.
And perhaps it’s time for those that have previously dismissed Irish ...
By Dominic Roskrow
from Issue 38 published on 7/4/2004
Peter Mulryan talks to Dave Phelan and Pat Rigney, the men who broke the mould producing a charcoal-mellowed Irish whiskey, Clontarf
Last summer, I was in one of the most popular pubs in the middle of ultrahip west Cork. It was a Wednesday afternoon (whisky writers don’t have real jobs), and I was leaning on the bar that, over the previous few months, had been leaned on by Liam Neeson, Quentin Tarantino and
Jeremy Irons, when in ...
By Peter Mulryan
from Issue 32 published on 13/7/2003
Dr John Teeling is teetotal, he runs on caffeine, and he’s making waves in the world of Irish whiskey. Peter Mulryan talks to the man behind the company
Depending on which part of the whiskey industry you work in, time is either your friend or your enemy. To a master blender, it’s a decade before some whiskeys start to get interesting, on the other hand, if you’re an investor, 10 or even 15 years is a hell of a wait for a return.
“There’s no busin...
By Peter Mulryan
from Issue 29 published on 24/3/2003
Susy Atkins examines Irish drinking culture and discovers that drinkers tastes have gradually changed and moved beyond Guinness, whiskey and liqueurs.
The Irish appetite for spirits is down to the marshy and watery terrain of the country, which causes them to fall ill from colds and flu. Well, that's what Edmund Campion put it down to in his book, History of Ireland, written in 1569. “For remedy thereof, they use an ordinary drink of aqua vitae,...
By Susy Atkins
from Issue 15 published on 16/4/2001
Jamie Walker had revived the Adelphi name after nearly a century. Ken Hyder talks to the man whose cask crusade promises to widen the horizons of Irish Whiskey and Scotch drinkers.
When Jamie Walker put single cask Irish whiskeys on sale this year (see New Releases, Whisky Magazine, Issue 8), it marked both the end of one journey and the beginning of another.
Jamie, the great grandson of Archibald Walker, owner of the Glasgow distillery Adelphi, had achieved his aim of revivi...
By Ken Hyder
from Issue 9 published on 16/4/2000
Irish Whiskey is entering a golden age hanks to the efforts of entrpreneurs such as Mark Andrews, Gary Regan met this king of Knappogue Castle.
There’s a whisky for every mood, or rather there is a Scotch or bourbon one. But Irish whiskeys ... well the choice is more limited. Or rather it was, until such enterprising chaps as Mark Andrews, president of Great Spirits, a company based in Houston, Texas, came along.
Andrews’ passion for Iris...
By Gary Regan
from Issue 9 published on 16/4/2000
Ireland is rich in myths about the magic powers of poitin, the aromatic spirit that was distilled illegally for centuries. But now it has a new life on the right side of the law. Susy Atkins traces its rise from moonshine to respectability
Go to the dark, smoky old bar in Bunratty, Shannon, western Ireland and you might well meet a poitin (pronounced ‘potcheen’) maker. You can sit with him and enjoy a glass or two of his clear, fiery spirit. The locals will chat and drink poitin with you too, and they’ll tell you romantic, very tall t...
By Susy Atkins
from Issue 8 published on 16/2/2000
Irish whiskey is an aesthetic discipline, says Kevin Pilley so get a grip
Wise man that he was, JB Priestley knew that ‘Man, the creature who knows he must die, who has dreams larger than his destiny, which is for ever working a confidence trick on him, needs an ally.’ His was tobacco. Mine happens to be Irish whiskey.
Confront the Irish whisky lover with Nature and he m...
By Kevin Pilley
from Issue 3 published on 13/5/1999
Without Ireland, there would be no whisky in Scotland. Giles Macdonagh traces Scotch back to its Irish roots.
Though it will make me unpopular in some parts of Glasgow to say so, whisky, like Christianity, reached Scotland from Ireland, possibly in a coracle. Whiskey (as the Irish now insist on spelling it), was supposedly made as early as the end of the first millennium. No-one knows how the Irish seized o...
By Giles Macdonagh
from Issue 3 published on 13/5/1999
