whiskypete wrote:Am I right in thinking that Grain distillation is a relatively new thing in Ireland? I read a book that was published in the 70's last night on whisky and it stated that the Irish had no desire for creating blended whisky? Is this correct or was the book wrong?
Hi Whiskypete, good question and an interesting one ... the Answer is yes and no ... Yes, the Irish had no major desire to blend their whiskey but this thinking was the reserve of the bigger names. John Jameson, John Powers, G.O Roe, William Jameson, Lockes, Tullamore, Bushmills, Coleraine and Old Comber are only a few who prefered to produce a pure unblended whiskey, these being the big names in Potstill and Single Malt whiskey in Ireland. However as soon as Coffey invented and Patented his still not all Irish producers ignored it and there is evidence that Coffey's patent still was installed in several Northern distilleries with at least one being soley a grain distillery. In Derry, Watts who created the Tryconnell Whiskey installed their Coffey Still in 1833 just 3 years after it was Patented and Dunvilles did similar as did a Distillery called Avoniel which was specifically a grain distillery set up in 1882 and closed in 1929.
The reason you might not thiink grain had any influence on Irish Whiskey is probably because the big pure pot still/single malt boys refused to "adulturate" their whiskey with this "silent" spirit as they saw it. It was not until the near collapse of the Irish whiskey industry after WWII that the remaining few had to turn to creating blends purely just to survive. Of what we have left now Tullamore Dew was one of the first to go with blending in the 1950's and Jameson & Powers followed in the late 60's or early 70's.
However early grain distilling was not just In the north as in the far south we had Midleton which was part of the already merged Cork Distillers Company (CDC) and they had 2 distillerys in the fold called The North Mall (Wises Whiskey)
Watercourse (Hewitts Whiskey) where there is evidence to say they had grain distilling since at least the 1860's. So as you can see grain distilling was in widespread use but the big international players did not go for it until it was too late. Hope this helps ... if you have a copy of Barnards book you should be able to read more.
