History of Irish single malts

[DavidH]

IrishWhiskeyChaser's comment on the peating thread leads naturally to another question... what is the history of the single malt in Ireland?

I know it's said that single malts went out with the malt tax in 1785, or soon thereafter. Did any Irish distillers produce single malts after this? What's the earliest single malt we can identify after this date? What's the earliest we can identify that was actually labelled a "single malt"?

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

A very interesting topic and I love it....

However and you might think it strange for me to say but quite a complicated subject in ways ....

To start off with we have to remember that singe malts as a category is actually a very new phenomena ... (the scotch whisky association has a lot to answer for ) Anyway Single Malt is really only a 20 odd year old catch phrase. There has always been single malts but not necessarily always named that way. Look at various old Irish bottlings and you will see alot stating 'Whisk(e)y Liqueur' I reckon that alot of PPS and malts were labelled the same way so there is a possibility we would never know what is what?

More investigation is required I reckon my dear Watson

[DavidH]

Bushmills!

And Colraine. There was a Colraine 34-year-old single malt available a number of years ago. Now very expensive.

Where did this come from? Somebody added it to my post. How did that happen?

[DavidH]

A quote from "Bushmills - 400 Years in the Making", where Peter Mulryan attempts to establish the earliest date a single malt was produced at the distillery:

We know for certain that the distillery was making malt whiskey in 1887, just two years after the fire. Ten years later it announced a special bottling of "10,000 dozens of our Pure Old Malt Whiskey, distilled in the Jubilee year of 1887"...

However this Jubilee Malt was not the first single malt to come from the distillery that would make this style of whiskey its own. In 1891 it launched 'Old Glyn Bush', which would have contained the first whiskeys to come from the new plant. This would date the malt at somewhere between a four- and a six-year old, which would be about right.

This, however, is contradicted by a photograph just a couple of pages earlier. It's the oldest surviving bottle of Bushmills. It's labelled 'Pure Malt Whiskey' and it was distilled in 1882, also according to the label. It was bottled in 1888 perhaps (it says "Bottled from 8IR/1888").

To me that looks like Bushmills was making single malt (though not calling it that, of course) before the 1885 fire.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Bushmills!

And Colraine. There was a Colraine 34-year-old single malt available a number of years ago. Now very expensive.

Where did this come from? Somebody added it to my post. How did that happen?

Wasn't me anyway


Gremlins maybe

[JohnM]

I posted that. I do not know why it came out as your name. Is this comign out as your name?

[JohnM]

Maybe I clicked the "edit" button unstead of the quote button? I don't know.

[DavidH]

Maybe I clicked the "edit" button unstead of the quote button? I don't know.

That's probably what happened. IrishWhiskeyChaser called you a gremlin, by the way

[JohnM]

Maybe I clicked the "edit" button unstead of the quote button? I don't know.

That's probably what happened. IrishWhiskeyChaser called you a gremlin, by the way

I've been called worse. I have a feeling gremlins are more focused and know what they're doing, however. I'm more like a spanner in the works.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Bleedin' Spanner

My Whiskey Crusader alter ego dictates that I take the proverbial (won't dare say it to your face)

[jcskinner]

My understanding was that single malt distillation in Ireland was a primarily Northern phenomenon. Certainly, Bushmills' Old Glyn Bush from the late Nineteenth century appears to have been a single malt product, albeit likely quite young.
Coleraine and Watts also did single malts. Dunville's of Belfast appears to have been primarily if not entirely involved in making PPS and PPS based blends, however, and Comber also seems to have been more PPS focused, as was the rest of the country.
Then again, this article's depiction of the Dunville's distilling process doesn't exactly rule out the possibility that Dunville's Three Crowns might be considered as a single malt product.
http://www.dumville.org/stories/making.html
Of course, I concur with what's already been said about 'single malt' being a much more modern term not easily transposed onto an earlier era.
I'd certainly be keen to hear more about what single malts might have been distilled elsewhere on the island.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Waterside in Derry owned by AA Watt & Co produced Malt but I have no idea if it was bottled as a single malt or just used for blending. AA Watt also owned the Abbey Street distillery in Derry which is thought to have been the first to get in a Coffee still which coincidently was installed by Aeneas Coffee personally. What it produced in it's pot stills I don't know off hand.

[jcskinner]

That's the difficulty in posing this question. While some of the Northern distilleries were undoubtedly distilling malt during some periods, a lot of it was being blended, as was standard in those days (and still is in Ireland, really.)
I doubt that any older Irish whiskeys would have been marketed as 'single malt' prior to Bushmills' re-entry to that market with the 10, 16 and later the 21 yo range.
But some of those many earlier bottlings, especially in the North, might well have been single malts even if they weren't sold that way. And in addition there were likely single malt runs that got blended too, a bit like the sporadic single malt run that Midleton do every few years these days.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

That's the difficulty in posing this question. While some of the Northern distilleries were undoubtedly distilling malt during some periods, a lot of it was being blended, as was standard in those days (and still is in Ireland, really.)

I don't know about it being standard back then as it was the Scots that first mastered the Blend with the Coffee still and they really did not start to gain propper momentum till the turn of the century. During the 19th century in Ireland I would of thought blending was more about getting some Jameson or Powers PPS and blending it with a cheaper & Younger lesser known whiskey and selling it as Jameson or what not. During this time there was a lot of counterfeiting of whiskey and it was probably standard in those circles where the use of virtually new make and prune juice was also rife and passed off as Whiskey some times with mortal consequences. There is a book called 'Truths About Whisky' (1873) which was a combined publishing by J.Jameson, W.Jameson, Roe & Power and aimed at trying to combat the proliferation of silent spirit (Grain whiskey) into the industry, so maybe there was a Blend momentum at that stage. Bushmills extolling their award winning Pure Malt I would not of thought cared much for blending at the time either. I cannot be certain either way but I would of been of the opinion that blends were relatively uncommon with the the major distillers. However in saying that my knowledge of the Closed Northern distilleries is more limited. I do believe that they cottoned on to the Coffee Still much quicker than the Dublin and other southern PPS distilleries. The northern distilleries did have some big output of grain though. My image of that time was Irish Whiskey as king and PPS was the king of Irish Whiskey with Bushmills & Coleraine Malts going against the grain and also being regaled. Whether that is true or not I don't know just my impression.

Between us maybe we will piece all this together. It would be nice to have a fairly comprehensive time line going so that we are all on the one page

[jcskinner]

I should have clarified - I meant that malt tended to be blended at that time, not that PPS was. As you said, Irish PPS seems to have been prone to getting blended (often by rogue Belfast blenders) with cheap young grain whiskey and resold as the good stuff in Britain.
But looking at the likes of Comber, they were PPS all the way it seems, whereas the likes of Dunville's do seem to have blended their PPS a bit, whether with grain, malt or both is unclear. Possibly all of the above at different times, given the scale of their production.
Meanwhile Bushmills and Watts were definitely influenced by the burgeoning malt trend as early as the late Nineteenth century, though both issued blends too.
I'm less sure of what the more Southerly distilleries would have been up to. My general impression is that they tended to focus on PPS, and often blended it with grain as still happens today at Midleton, generally not going the malt route.
But I'd be keen to learn more about the history of the Southern brands and what their products actually were going back in time.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Excellent stuff JC thanks. I think we all may have gaps in our knowledge I think there is actually a big gaping hole in my head

[jcskinner]

My big gaping hope is that one day we will be able to accurately interpret the scanty info on the labels of older bottles to get a real sense of what they were actually making!
As you point out, Bush were referring to what we would now call single malt as 'pure malt' some decades ago. And generally Irish distillers were more inclined to put either a simple age statement on the bottle or refer to it by some ambiguous term like 'guaranteed Irish', 'old Irish', 'Rare Irish', etc.
Pure Pot Still does seem to have been a signifier of quality, and those who made it often made a point of advertising that fact, in the way that Scottish distilleries make the phrase 'single malt' prominent today.
Hence you'll find Comber, Redbreast etc always boasting their PPS status, while other labels of similar vintage give little information away at all as to what was in the bottle.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

In researching the use of Whiskey & Whisky being used by Irish Distillers on their labels I came across 2 Malt whiskies.

One was on Thomas' www.Potstill.DE/ site

Glen Distillery Co., Cork Fine Old Malt Whiskey

The other was an old advert in Malachy MAgee's 1000 years of Irish WHiskey.

And it was a label for

Old Malt Whiskey, Goe Roe & Co Distillers

This label look much older than the Glen Distillery label and I reckon pre 1900's to turn of the century.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Just came across another contender for a Single Malt distillery in Ireland. It's a bit of guess work though but the circumstantial evidence points to this fact. I will expand and see what ye think.

Birr Distillery 1805-1890 (R&J Wallace)

Brian Townsend could not decide for himself on the whiskey as he could only really refer to Bernards book for any detailed account on the Distillery as there appears to be very little else about the distillery. Even Barnards account is a little vague and is only covered by a single page and no etching which is unusual for the book.

What Barnard stated is that the Whiskey is produced from pure malt and grain.

This could mean 1 or 2 things. A) they were producing Malt and grain whiskey for blending. or B) that the whiskey was made from a mix of Malt and grain to produce a Pure pot still.

However Barnard was fairly consistent on detailing whether PPS was produced in a distillery or not. Also the term pure malt would indicate that it was Pure Malt Whiskey rather than the raw ingredient being used. Remember Bushmills was also refered to as Pure Malt during this time. And my last piece of circumstantial evidence and what got me thinking on this was an old label I came across. The label was from M. Madden & Sons Tea, Wine & Spirit Merchants 29 Main Street, Birr "Old Malt Whiskey"

Coincidence or no ... ???

Madden & Sons Birr

MMadden.JPG (73.24 KiB) Viewed 2110 times

[donaldosaurus]

Waterside in Derry owned by AA Watt & Co produced Malt but I have no idea if it was bottled as a single malt or just used for blending. AA Watt also owned the Abbey Street distillery in Derry which is thought to have been the first to get in a Coffee still which coincidently was installed by Aeneas Coffee personally. What it produced in it's pot stills I don't know off hand.

Here is my bottle pre 1920 which is now for sale