A little Cooley help please

[Malt-Teaser]

I have a dilemma which I am sure the knowledgeable folk around here can help with, please

As I said in my introduction I post tasting notes on my website and I tend to do this by distillery, for example when it comes to Scotch I have a page for each distillery like Ardbeg, Bowmore ..... etc.
I also have pages for distilleries like Loch Lomond, even though they produce various 'brands' or labels within the one distillery (Craiglodge, Croftengea, Glen Douglas, Inchfad, Inchmoan, Inchmurrin, Old Rhosdhu and of course Loch Lomond). The same goes for "The Speyside" with their various brands.

But what about Cooley?
At the moment I have one page each for Greenore, Connemara & Kilbeggan and as I am about to review Tyrconnel & Locke's I was wondering whether all the Cooley 'brands' shouldn't be on one page too?

Basically, do Cooley just have the one distillery (location) or have they many? If they have many, does anyone know which brands are distilled where?
In your opinion, should I treat Cooley as a distillery and have each 'brand' as a separate section within that single page which means any different expressions will be reviewed and listed in each section, or should I treat Cooley as an organisation owning various distilleries (or brands) and allow each a separate 'distillery' page.

For example (if you don't mind me posting a link) here is how I have treated Loch Lomond;
http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/ActualTastingNotes/Inchmoan.htm

Whereas at the moment Greenore is;
http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/ActualTastingNotes/Greenore.htm

and Connemara;
http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/ActualTastingNotes/Connemara.htm

Oh, if you'd like to see how the 'distilleries' are presented, then;
http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/TastingNotes.htm#jumphere

I thank you in advance for your input and suggestions on this dilemma,
Malty

[JohnM]

Hi Keith

Cooley have a distillery in Riverstown that makes Connemara, Tyrconnell, Greenore, Kilbeggan and Locke's, as well as a few more.

They have reopened the Kilbeggan distillery too, where they have produced the Kilbeggan Malt Whiskey Distillery Reserve. The one that has been bottled got its first distillation in Riverstown, though... And the second distillation was done in Kilbeggan. The Kilbeggan blend, a different whiskey, is still made in Riverstown, for the moment.

So, I'd group them all together, except the Kilbeggan Distillery Reserve.

A bit complicated, I know.

John

[Malt-Teaser]

Hi John and thanks for replying so quickly (and early) on a Saturday morning.

Yes, it does seem a little complicated. I take it the distillery picture I use on my Greenore page is the Riverstown one?

If I split Cooley across two pages as you suggest, then even though the Kilbeggan is technically split across the two, I would prefer to find a way to keep all Kilbeggan together, just to keep it simple for selecting 'Kilbeggan' on my main tasting note page. Maybe I do give Kilbeggan its own page, but within that page state which is distilled where?

[DavidH]

I take it the distillery picture I use on my Greenore page is the Riverstown one?

I don't know what that pic is. Here's what the Riverstown distillery looks like:
http://irishwhiskeychaser.webs.com/CooleyDistillery.jpg

[TheWhiskeyBro]

Hi there Malt-Teaser,

Your suggestion is probably best, keep Kilbeggan under Kilbeggan distillery and note where/how originally distilled. There will be futher output from Kilbeggan in the future and best to display separately, however Kilbeggan will always (?) be a boutique arm of the Cooley plc's operations and the likely source of small batch/artisan style releases. The larger OBs like the Kilbeggan blend & Kilbeggan 15 & 18yo (due Nov 2010) will most likely continue to come out of Cooley's Riverstown operation.

However as you know Irish Whiskey generally attracts attention by brand name first and distillery second except for Bushmills of course where it is one and the same.

Take the Knappogue for example: the 1951 is from Tullamore, with the modern bottlings shared between Cooley & Bushmills.
Similarly with Tullamore Dew, has Midleton only and Cooley only bottlings, and with Grants the new owners this could change further, who knows.

I'm sure there is the odd blend which is the product of two distilleries. Need more research to check when Midleton were swapping grain for malt with Bushmills (topic worthy of a separate thread)

My own approach for Ireland is by brand

So either approach would work well.

Cheers!!!

[Malt-Teaser]

Thanks for the responses everyone and if I may clear up a couple of things;

This is my initial tasting note page which currently lists distilleries / brands for initial tasting note selection.
http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/TastingNotes.htm

You will see the Irish ones off to the right hand side down the page and at the moment they are listed by brand name, (bold green means note(s) available, red means coming soon). Anyway, this won't change, I intend to keep those 'brand' names but what I am trying to decide upon is what opens when you select a brand and I think I now have the answer; It seems logical to have one single page which is opened when Greenore, Connemara, Tyrconnel or Locke's is selected. I will set labels so that the correct section of the page is skipped to, for the particular notes (brand) selected.
I will have one other purely 'Kilbeggan' page which is selected from 'Kilbeggan' on my link above, but again I will order the tasting notes on this page by actual distillery location, should I get the chance to sample anything other than my current standard issue.

Secondly, when I was initially building my pages I searched for pictures of each distillery. A few good friends supplied me with Scottish distillery pictures and have allowed me to use them with acknowledgements. There were one or two gaps and Cooley was one of them, but as I won't infringe intellectual property rights I always refuse to pinch things from the 'net. This particular picture was highlighted on the Wiki page that I found and subsequently on the Wikimedia page which allows anyone to copy pictures so long as they conform to the requested acknowledgement. This picture was offered as such for Cooley distillery.
As it is quite clearly incorrect I will remove it at my next page upgrade and look for another, or use one of my own non-distillery but regional photos (as I have done for Connemara).



Almost a year ago in Oct. 2009 I totally redesigned my website to incorporate my tasting notes which have mushroomed to over 500 at the moment. In the last few weeks I have been tinkering with the site again, just tidying a few things and it must have worked as I have had quite good unsolicited feedback recently. As I look around I see an opportunity to reformat my individual distillery pages, but I want to get it as right as possible as there are well over 100 pages to update. This 'Cooley' exercise will be part of that and I hope to get started sometime in September, maybe even late August, but I also agree that it will be a rather large operation and take some time although I am sure it will be worth the effort.

I'm sure I'll be in here asking for more help about the distilleries when I get to the Irish pages as I doubt anyone knows better than the kind folk on this forum.

Thanks again for your welcome and help,
Keith
(Malty)

[SixCats!]

Hi Keith,

As I type this response, I am enjoying a LARGE dram of Kilbeggan Irish Whiskey. I agree with you 100% that Kilbeggan is a fine tasting Irish Whiskey despite it's low cost. In fact, Kilbeggan is fast becoming one of my favorite (easy to drink) budget Irish Whiskies. There are several members here at IWS that do not like Kilbeggan Whiskey which surprises me. Granted, I am somewhat new to drinking Whiskey but, I believe I have quickly developed a good palate. Irish Whiskey I have tried and purchased (several bottles each) is Jameson 12, Black Bush, The Irishman Original Clan, Powers, Kellan (and of course) Redbreast. I enjoyed each and every one for different reasons. That being said, I am NOT embarrassed whatsoever to admit that I VERY much enjoy Kilbeggan Irish Whiskey. Here in Maine, U.S. of A. Kilbeggan is (if I'm not mistaken) THE least expensive Irish Whiskey sold in the State. A bottle of Kilbeggan cost less than $16.00 for a 750ml and I consider that an excellent bargain. Kilbeggan is HALF the cost of (for instance) Black Bush here in Maine. Heck, I haven't yet tasted an Irish Whiskey that I DIS-like, and I guess that is a GOOD thing!

Regards,
SixCats! aka Tom Patrick

[Malt-Teaser]

SixCats? We only have two.

I have three sets of samples on my desk which will all be tried in the next few days.
One comprises Locke's, Tyrconnel & The irishman 10y single malt
Another comprises three Scttish Gramns; North of Scotland, North British & Port Dundas
the last is Evan Williams honey reserve & Mackmyra 'First'.

When I post the Irish notes I'll use this as an excuse to rebuild the page(s), incorporating the Cooley distilleries as mentioned above and then update you all on here afterwards for further comment.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Hey Malty ... just came across this thread ... as The Whiskey bro has already stated most Irish Brands are produced by only 2 distillery's so doing it by distillery could get confusing as some expressions of the same brand are produced by different distiller as already mentioned. So maybe just stick to how you have it already.

Have a look at my site (Click on my banner in my sig) and you'll get an idea of how many expressions per brand there can be.

The likes of Connemara and Tyrconnell have many single cask offerings coming out constantly. Of course iof you only have time to do "x" amount of tastings then maybe it is not worth going to all that trouble. Tricky call really.

[Malt-Teaser]

Here's the type of thing I'm considering, now live on website as a test;

Cooley; http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/ActualTastingNotes/Cooley.htm

But Greenore or Connemara can be directly selected;
Connemara; http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/ActualTastingNotes/Cooley.htm#Connemara

Greenore; http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/ActualTastingNotes/Cooley.htm#Greenore

I'll ultimately add individual bottle selection too.

[DavidH]

Will there be a handy page to link to as a jumping off point for Irish content?

I ask because I want to develop our links page but I want to limit it to sites of Irish interest (otherwise it's too big a task, and it's one that is done elsewhere anyway).

[Malt-Teaser]

I have no plans for a specific Irish overview page, but in the back of my mind is another slight, very slight, reformat of my main tasting notes page.

I need to build in a little more contingency at some point and at the moment the Irish list is under a few general things like Blends and miscellaneous. At some point in the future (weeks or couple or so months, not years!) I can see those picture-based blends and miscellany needing more space, at which time the currently small Irish list will need a new home and I quite fancy having them below that currently large table, probably ending up between Scotch & rest of world.
How I do this; Pictorally or textually I'm not yet decided, but at that point it will have its own label to allow a direct url to find it (something like .....tastingnotes#Irish). At that time you would be welcome to use that as a link and I'll guarantee a nice little section of the page for 'Irish Whiskey" if that helps?

Whilst talking about links, I was going to put an offer on one of the sub-forums, probably 'Society', but I can do it here now; If you would like to mail me the IWS logo / header as a graphic I'd be delighted to add you to my "Wall of Friends";
http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/Friends-Links.htm

It's a kind of ever evolving wall of grafiti, sorry very useful graphical links for all things whisk(e)y and Scotland, also more Ireland if any more useful sites come along with their logos.

[varizoltan]

Here's the type of thing I'm considering, now live on website as a test;

Cooley; http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/ActualTastingNotes/Cooley.htm

But Greenore or Connemara can be directly selected;
Connemara; http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/ActualTastingNotes/Cooley.htm#Connemara

Greenore; http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/ActualTastingNotes/Cooley.htm#Greenore

I'll ultimately add individual bottle selection too.

Greenore 10??? where is it come from???
as far as i know there is only 6-8-15 years old available

[Malt-Teaser]

The kind person who sent me that Greenore 10 sample was one of the Whisky Mag forumites called "Wendy" who is based in either the USA or Canada (sorry, can't remember which) and I believe it was a special edition / bottling for that market.

[varizoltan]

The kind person who sent me that Greenore 10 sample was one of the Whisky Mag forumites called "Wendy" who is based in either the USA or Canada (sorry, can't remember which) and I believe it was a special edition / bottling for that market.

interesting,
usually a few bottles available in the CWS, like the 6 years old was made for the Belgian market, and they got a few cases

[TheWhiskeyBro]

The Greenore 10yo was a small batch that Cooley had a contract to supply the LCBO in Canada, it is long since sold out.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Greenore 10??? where is it come from???
as far as i know there is only 6-8-15 years old available

I'm surprised with you Z ... that was fairly common knowledge ... exclusive to LCBO Canada (Liqueur Control Board Ontario) so not even available nation wide.

I have a couple ... you can have one for €200

[varizoltan]

Greenore 10??? where is it come from???
as far as i know there is only 6-8-15 years old available

I'm surprised with you Z ... that was fairly common knowledge ... exclusive to LCBO Canada (Liqueur Control Board Ontario) so not even available nation wide.

I have a couple ... you can have one for €200

[Malt-Teaser]

Locke's now online;
http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/ActualTastingNotes/Cooley.htm#Lockes

Also Tyrconnell;
http://www.whisky-emporium.com/UK/ActualTastingNotes/Cooley.htm#Tyrconnell

[Malt-Teaser]

Finally, here's my "Dram-atics" take on last night;
http://www.whisky-emporium.com/Blogs/2010-08-Aug/Blog.htm

[JohnM]

A really nice write up, Keith. Enjoyed it a lot.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Achill is a splendid and beautiful place to be with good weather but even in bad it only transforms to a rugged beauty. Sounds like you had a nice holiday ... I like john enjoyed your write up

[Malt-Teaser]

Achill is special and I was introduced to it by my German wife who has spent years of holidays travelling through Ireland.

I have no idea if Francis is still there or even alive, but he was a true institution. As for "Panorama" it's still listed on an internet page with Mick & Nancy as the owners, but our information is that they moved away a couple or so years ago. I could equally have written about my (sorry 'our') love for Roundstone and the beaches at Mannin Bay, or even the area around LaHinch (apart from Saturday 'Disco' nights which turn the town into a war zone after midnight), or ..... or ..... anyway, 'tis indeed a grand place and the whisky aint 'alf bad too.