Please help a newbie!

[Newloverofwhiskey]

I a member of a recently estalished whiskey appreciation society in the north of Nottinghamshire, England. Before ideas start of me stealing information and setting up a rival society, thats not the case. It's simply half a dozen good friends all 50+ finding an excuse to get out the house once a quarter and enjoy the old aqua vītae

Several memebrs are familiar /very familiar with Scotch whisky but no-one has much experience or knowledge of Irish whiskey. Our next meeting is early january and I have offered to find out about Irish whiskey to help educate us all.

Basically i'm just after some pointers. I'm not wanting you guys to do the research for me as i'll enjoy that myself but i just want to make sure i'm reading from good sources and not finding out bogus facts.

Some areas i'm hoping to find out are:

how does it differ from Scotch whisky
is the manufacturing/distilling process significantly different
what are the most common brands
are there any good sources of printed information/literature

I've been looking at the jameson website and using wikipedia for a bit of info on distilleries but thats it so far. I'm actually fairly new to computers so getting this far has taken its time!

Any information, books, websites, or anything else which may help to make our next meeting a raring success would be greatly appreciated.

many thanks

[varizoltan]

Hi Newbie,

so you find Jameson's website, here is the other working distilleries websites, where you can read a bit about their history, progress, brands etc,


http://www.bushmills.com/

http://www.cooleywhiskey.com

http://www.kilbegganwhiskey.com

these sites surely get you started

a good reference book about all kind of whiskeys would be the Whiskey bible by Jim Murray, which gives you a bit of reading about the styles what different regions offer, and of course tasting notes for over 4500 whiskeys

http://whiskybible.com

i hope you have fun with the lads over there, and feel free to ask any question

[JohnM]

Some areas i'm hoping to find out are:

how does it differ from Scotch whisky
is the manufacturing/distilling process significantly different
what are the most common brands
are there any good sources of printed information/literature

Classic Irish Whikey from Jim Murray is a good source, although it's a bit dated. Peter Mulryan's The Whiskeys of Ireland is a more up-to-date source.

Good luck. Would love to hear how your tasting goes.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Most people here will be glad to answer any of your questions and give advice freely. But you know what they say about free advice, and that includes mine . The best part of it is the tasting research ... but I'll stick my oar in anyway.

Bushmills produce only Single Malt and Triple Distill. They Currently source their grain from Midleton but cask and age it themselves.

Bottles to check out: Blackbush, 16yo triple wood, 21yo and any single cask bottling if you can get one.


Cooley produce Single Malt and Grain and only Double distill. They also are the only distillery in Ireland that produce peated and unpeated whiskey. Cooley produce many Brands,

Ones to check out: Connemara Cask Strength, Greenore 15yo Grain, Locke's 8yo (Lightly Peated) Tyrconnell 10yo Maderia Finish

and getting a lot of notice currently is Sainsbury's Irish Whiskey Dún Léire 8yo

Kilbeggan is an old Distillery owned by Cooley. It closed in 1957 but started to distill in a small scale in 2007. The currently a double distilled Malt but possibly will triple distill too.

Only one bottling available and that is only at the Distillery so possibly hard to get your hands on. Kilbeggan Distillery Malt.

Midleton produce Pot Still, grain and small amounts of single malt (which is only used for blending) All is triple distilled. They are the biggest Distiller in Irisland by a long shot and dwarf all Scotch distilleries too bar a handful. They produce Pot Still or Pure Pot Still (PPS) whiskey which is a single distilled whiskey but because the worth is made up of both malted and unmalted barley it cant be considered as single malt but it is possibly Irelands best whiskey.

Ones to check out: Greenspot, Redbreast 12 & 15yo (All PPS) Powers Gold label, Jameson 12yo, Jameson Gold, Powers 12yo, Jameson 18yo

[Ace]

I'll second the recommendation for Jim Murray's "Classic Irish Whiskey". You'll probably have to buy a used copy as it was originally published in 1996-7 and is probably no longer in print. It's dated but the additional material concerning now-dead brands is valuable.

Peter Mulryan's book, while not as comprehensive, features some stellar photography. I'd buy that book for the photography alone.

[shanel23]

Hi - sorry to hijack this thread but is this the Sainsbury's cooley ?

http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/i ... 9476066157

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Hi - sorry to hijack this thread but is this the Sainsbury's cooley ?

http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/i ... 9476066157

Can't quite follow that link but I went into their whisky section and could only see the Tall bottle vesion.

Ralfy does a long windedreport but in his genial style here

The Dub Leire is bottled in a Redbreast style bottle.
Can't find a picture an the mo ...

[JohnM]

I don't get any whiskey on that page, for some reason, but this is a picture of the Dun Leire

http://www.ramsey.uk.net/whiskies/Blend ... l#dunleire

[bredman]

Here's a quick shot of it.

[JohnM]

It's packaged nicely, I think.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Yes it looks nice all right. The simplicity of the label works well.

[shanel23]

Thanks lads - have two on order