Bushmills Tasting Galway 20th June

[JohnM]

There were pictures of them somewhere, weren't there? Can anyone post a picture of the column stills?

John

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

I only have a picture of the ones in Kilbegan

[JohnM]

Thanks Adrian

They look in pretty good shape.

[varizoltan]

are they put them back to work

[cathach]

They're very unusual in that they're all copper compared to modern columns that only have the one copper part. Very good nick too, they can't have been kept outside the whole time?

[Willie JJ]

I still feel we really can't be sure that Cooley have a better quality grain whiskey

Let's just say it may be "different". As you say, we can't compare. It's not neutral, tasteless spirit that these distilleries are producing, is my point, so there is a good chance they don't taste the same. And therefore they are not interchangeable as far as Bushmills is concerned. But that's just speculation on my part. Perhaps maturation is more important.

I think that logically both of these things have to be true. There must be a belief, at official levels at least, that distillation to 94.8% or less leaves some character in the whiskey, and logically if the ingredients and stills are different then the character will be too. Of course it may not be terribly obvious. I have only tasted one new make grain and it was certainly less interesting flavour-wise than new make malts, (which are quite distinctive), but it did have a taste, which apparently 100% ethanol does not (never tried that). It certainly wouldn't surprise me to find that there is sufficient difference in grains to make the end product discernably different if you are really looking looking for those differences. We did a big tasting of Scottish grains and there seemed to me to be some distillery characteristics, although there is no doubt that grain whiskies are very similar indeed. The question we were not able to answer was how were the distillery characteristics arrived at. The comment from Bushmills that they bought the raw spirit in bulk and matured it to their own specification is very important in this I think.

I guess that there is little doubt that most of a whiskey's flavour is coming from the cask and this is more true of grain than malt. Grain certainly seems to need a lot more time in cask to become a well rounded drink in its own right. Ok, so there may be an issue with the quality of casks that grain is put into, but I have yet to taste a really good young grain, whereas young malts can often be excellent (there also a sample size bias there too, but I think the results have convinced me at least). But it may be the quality of the casks that are at the heart of the Cooley/Bushmills question.

Bushmills as a large volume producer with an established customer base and long tradition may well be continuing the traditional practice of maturing the grain for the necessary period in well used (cheap) casks, which offer little to the spirit and leave it rather raw and, well, spirity. Cooley on the other hand, with a newer product and a need to establish a customer base, may have tried harder to get their grain into good casks, giving a better end result. Of course this is speculation on my part, but the next time I see Noel Sweeney at a fair its certainly a question I will ask (unless someone beats me to it).

i'm not saying that the distillate has nothing to do with the end character of the different grains, but I do think it is much more likely that the maturation policy has much more to do with it.

Sorry if this was a long and rambling post. It is the morning after Saturday night.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

AN excellent post WILLIE and some very good points to consider. As you say it is definately not cut and dry as there could be a lot of variants in the equation.

I think you may be right about Cooley giving it a little bit more on grain front especially the stuff they are using for their greenore.