What Whisky/Whiskey are we drinking this month?

RasTa · 24-03-2019 4:06pm

Took advantage of the £5 off £25 the other day and with some other stuff applied got a bottle of Redbreast Lustau edition delivered for £28 quid. Even now it's only £3 more for the Lustau bottle

Rows Grower · 24-03-2019 6:44pm

Chivas Regal 12 year old, the bottle has a handle and a slow pour cap.
I tried a drop there like you’d see them drink from those bottles in the old westerns, knuckles facing the bottle. Jaysus lads they’re a well designed bottle.
Lovely whisky, smoother than I remembered.

Useful.Idiot · 24-03-2019 8:09pm

Lidl have in a "Ben Bracken" Islay single malt for ~24e. Pretty damn good for the price point.

odyssey06 · 25-03-2019 9:23am

Anyone tried this approach... Pairing a particular whiskey with beer?
https://foodandwine.ie/great-irish-drinks-whiskey-beer-pairings

e.g. Redbreast 12-year-old with Sunburnt Irish Red Ale from Eight Degrees Brewery

EagererBeaver · 25-03-2019 9:35am

odyssey06 wrote: »

Anyone tried this approach... Pairing a particular whiskey with beer?
https://foodandwine.ie/great-irish-drinks-whiskey-beer-pairings

e.g. Redbreast 12-year-old with Sunburnt Irish Red Ale from Eight Degrees Brewery

"Having a whiskey without a beer is like having a burger without fries"

What a load of contrived aul bollocks.

BeerNut · 25-03-2019 10:02am

IDL really thinking outside the portfolio there :rolleyes:

limnam · 25-03-2019 4:21pm

odyssey06 wrote: »

Anyone tried this approach... Pairing a particular whiskey with beer?
https://foodandwine.ie/great-irish-drinks-whiskey-beer-pairings

e.g. Redbreast 12-year-old with Sunburnt Irish Red Ale from Eight Degrees Brewery

Partial to a leann follain with a drop of RB all right.

odyssey06 · 25-03-2019 4:52pm

I can't make it myself, am curious about this Blackwater Distillery event in Dublin I stumbled upon - maybe some enterprising boardsie will scout it out.
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/our-stolen-heritage-a-tasting-of-historic-pot-still-new-make-tickets-58806307248

the beer revolu · 25-03-2019 6:25pm

odyssey06 wrote: »

I can't make it myself, am curious about this Blackwater Distillery event in Dublin I stumbled upon - maybe some enterprising boardsie will scout it out.
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/our-stolen-heritage-a-tasting-of-historic-pot-still-new-make-tickets-58806307248

I'm looking forward to seeing if others like our new-make as much as we do!

L1011 · 25-03-2019 8:08pm

What was the thrust of the 2014 change to specs?

Sold Out now, does look interesting but will have to wait to see if there's a repeat!

Quackster · 25-03-2019 10:33pm

L1011 wrote: »

What was the thrust of the 2014 change to specs?

I'm guessing it's the 5% limit on non-barley grain in the single pot still mash.

studdlymurphy · 25-03-2019 10:50pm

Green spot and yellow spot, Any thoughts on these? I've not tasted either but looking for a change from jameson. Where is good to get them price wise?
Thanks

BoardsMember · 25-03-2019 10:52pm

Talisker 10 and West Cork. Like both, utterly different.

SteelyDanJalapeno · 25-03-2019 10:58pm

BoardsMember wrote: »

Talisker 10 and West Cork. Like both, utterly different.

Love the saltiness of the Talisker 10

lord lucan · 25-03-2019 11:45pm

L1011 wrote: »

What was the thrust of the 2014 change to specs?

Sold Out now, does look interesting but will have to wait to see if there's a repeat!

The last 3 blog posts explain where they're coming from with regards to the technical file and it's definition of pot still whiskey. Great to see what they're doing with some historical mash bills,I'm going along that night, really looking forward to trying their new make.

BoardsMember · 26-03-2019 12:18am

SteelyDanJalapeno wrote: »

Love the saltiness of the Talisker 10

I must try it again with that comment. I'm not a big whiskey drinker and very uninformed, but I like it. And I have a father in law whose wife steals a bottle from his ample collection and gives it to me each Christmas!

limnam · 26-03-2019 12:24am

studdlymurphy wrote: »

Green spot and yellow spot, Any thoughts on these? I've not tasted either but looking for a change from jameson. Where is good to get them price wise?
Thanks

Both great whiskeys.

any decent off license should have them probably won't see a huge difference in prices

SteelyDanJalapeno · 26-03-2019 8:44am

BoardsMember wrote: »

I must try it again with that comment. I'm not a big whiskey drinker and very uninformed, but I like it. And I have a father in law whose wife steals a bottle from his ample collection and gives it to me each Christmas!

Ha nice! This would be a nice but not too expensive steal! A couple of mls of water really brings out the flavours.

studdlymurphy · 26-03-2019 10:24am

limnam wrote:

Both great whiskeys.

limnam wrote:

any decent off license should have them probably won't see a huge difference in prices

Thanks for the help

VW 1 · 26-03-2019 11:50am

Had my first try of a Nikka Coffey Grain I picked up a couple of weeks ago. It's nice, doesn't have that slight smoky element of the Nikka from the Barrel, but is certainly a very drinkable drop. Doesn't quite have the complexity of flavor some of the Irish whiskys around the same price point would have, but makes up for it with it's smoothness.

the beer revolu · 26-03-2019 6:55pm

Quackster wrote: »

I'm guessing it's the 5% limit on non-barley grain in the single pot still mash.

That's it in a nutshell.

Mellor · 27-03-2019 6:53am

the beer revolu wrote: »

That's it in a nutshell.

Are you involved with Blackwater? or am I misinterpreting previous comment.

L1011 wrote: »

What was the thrust of the 2014 change to specs?

Just to clarify, there was no change to specs. Prior to 2014, there was no specs. All pot stills made in 2012, were still pot still whiskey in 2016.
No whiskeys suddenly lost it's status.

The Blackwater Blog is worth a read;
http://blackwaterdistillery.ie/our-stolen-heritage/
http://blackwaterdistillery.ie/heritage-2/
http://blackwaterdistillery.ie/heritage-3/

Although, I'd have a few small criticisms. IDL/Midleton were the of distillery consulted about the specs of Pot Still Whiskey - because there were the only one making it. It’s not like they blocked anyone. Maybe the 5% was a active effort to nail it to their recipe.
Or maybe it was a quality control issue. The blog does fails to mention a key issue, that Pot stil whiskey came about to avoid a tax on malt. I’d assume that oats and rye were a similarly cost saving approach. It makes sense to try to preserve quality vrs cost.

On the other hand, I can’t think of a valid argument why it should be 5% and not 10 or 15%

the beer revolu · 27-03-2019 12:48pm

Mellor wrote: »

Are you involved with Blackwater? or am I misinterpreting previous comment.

Sorry. Yes I am.
I thought that was well known by regulars on this forum.

the beer revolu · 27-03-2019 1:17pm

Mellor wrote: »

The Blackwater Blog is worth a read;
http://blackwaterdistillery.ie/our-stolen-heritage/
http://blackwaterdistillery.ie/heritage-2/
http://blackwaterdistillery.ie/heritage-3/

Although, I'd have a few small criticisms. IDL/Midleton were the of distillery consulted about the specs of Pot Still Whiskey - because there were the only one making it. It’s not like they blocked anyone. Maybe the 5% was a active effort to nail it to their recipe.
Or maybe it was a quality control issue. The blog does fails to mention a key issue, that Pot stil whiskey came about to avoid a tax on malt. I’d assume that oats and rye were a similarly cost saving approach. It makes sense to try to preserve quality vrs cost.

On the other hand, I can’t think of a valid argument why it should be 5% and not 10 or 15%

Yes, the original motivation behind pot still whiskey was the avoidance of tax. This move created a new style of whiskey. This style was/is neither inferior or superior to all malt whiskey - it's just different - and to my taste, more interesting. Your quality vrs cost argument strays into the territory of maintaining that malt whisky is, by definition, superior to pot still whiskey because it doesn't have any (what were originally) cost saving ingredients. I don't agree with this sentiment, at all.

Hotblack Desiato · 27-03-2019 5:32pm

So is this why stuff like Writer's Tears can't be called pot still? The mash bill?

the beer revolu · 27-03-2019 11:12pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

So is this why stuff like Writer's Tears can't be called pot still? The mash bill?

If you are referring to Writer's Tears Copper Pot, I'd guess it's because it's a blend of pot still and mallt whiskey rather than entirely distilled from a mash of malted and unmalted barley (a pot still mash).

So, Irish pot still whisk(e)y must be made entirely from mashes containing malted and unmalted barley (and optionally, other grains).

Irish malt whisk(e)y must be made entirely from mashes of malted barley.

If you blend the two above, it is no longer an Irish pot still whisky.

Irish pot still whiskey is distilled in a pot still.
Irish malt whiskey is also distilled in a pot still. Confusing? Yes.

I'm open to correction on any of this.

Mellor · 28-03-2019 1:41am

the beer revolu wrote: »

Sorry. Yes I am.
I thought that was well known by regulars on this forum.

Genuinely never knew, not sure how that one slipped past me.
I'll have to try it now

, although not sure if its available in Australia.

the beer revolu wrote: »

Yes, the original motivation behind pot still whiskey was the avoidance of tax. This move created a new style of whiskey. This style was/is neither inferior or superior to all malt whiskey - it's just different - and to my taste, more interesting.

I agree it’s wrong to generalise either style is inherently superior. We can’t just sign it’s popularity local/national preference either. At the height of Irish whiskey, pot still whiskey was the best selling whiskey is the world. Outselling Scottish malt whiskey. At the end of the 19th century only 2 out of 28 distilleries in ireland were even producing single malt whiskey.

Your quality vrs cost argument strays into the territory of maintaining that malt whisky is, by definition, superior to pot still whiskey because it doesn't have any (what were originally) cost saving ingredients. I don't agree with this sentiment, at all.

No, I don’t think it does suggest that, certainly not what I meant to suggest. We continued to use green barley long after the tax was removed. If malt whiskey was better by definition, we wouldn’t have done that.

Pure pot still and single malt whiskey are both made from the exact same ingredients. Identical. The difference is entirely down process.
That is, until the other grains are permitted. Maybe integrity is a better word to use than quality. There should be some limit to maintain the integrity of pot still, the way scotch, bourbon, corn whiskey, rye, etc all have mash bill criteria. Just maybe not are restrictive as 5%.

Mellor · 28-03-2019 2:48am

the beer revolu wrote: »

If you are referring to Writer's Tears Copper Pot, I'd guess it's because it's a blend of pot still and mallt whiskey...

I'm open to correction on any of this.

That's exactly it. The total mash bill could possibly be within limits for pot sill, but it's actually a blended whiskey.

Same way as blending a single malt, and a single grain from the one distillery, makes a blend and not a single grain.
But if they mashed all the original ingredients together from the start it would be single grain.

partyguinness · 28-03-2019 3:12pm

I was at a wanky pretentious cocktail bar with missus last weekend. I saw an Ardbeg cocktail.

While I like Ardbeg on its own in the comfort of my own home it was a case of 'I gotta try this out of sheer curiosity.'

Just downloaded the actual cocktail:

"Smokey Old Bastard £10.00
Abelour A’Bunadh ~ Ardbeg 10 ~ Pedro Ximinez ~ Maple"

I won't lie. It was rank...:o

Seth Brundle · 28-03-2019 3:31pm

partyguinness wrote: »

I was at a wanky pretentious cocktail bar with missus last weekend. I saw an Ardbeg cocktail.

While I like Ardbeg on its own in the comfort of my own home it was a case of 'I gotta try this out of sheer curiosity.'

Just downloaded the actual cocktail:

"Smokey Old Bastard £10.00
Abelour A’Bunadh ~ Ardbeg 10 ~ Pedro Ximinez ~ Maple"

I won't lie. It was rank...:o

A few years back I was doing some work with staff down in Midleton.
One of the nights a group of about a half dozen staff and I went out for dinner to the Cornstore. Everyone initially went for a cocktail when we arrived and I chose this...

It was absolutely delicious. For the next few rounds before dinner, everyone in the group was drinking them.

What Whisky/Whiskey are we drinking this month?

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