Irish Distilleries Flashcards
According to the legend, when was Bushmills founded? When was it actually founded?
In 1608 James I gave patents (monopolies) to four of his cronies and Sir Thomas Phillips of Antrim was given one of those patents. There is no evidence of a distillery at Bushmills at that time.
Bushmills legally became a distillery in 1784 when excise officer Aeneas Coffee approved the license.
Why didn’t Bushmills come under DCLs control along with the other distilleries in Northern Ireland?
Because Bushmills made Single Malt and not grain whiskey (like Coleraine), it never came under DCLs control.
What was a political reason why Bushmills survived when so many of the other large distilleries in Ireland declined during the early 1900s
Bushmills is in Northern Ireland, which stayed loyal to Great Britain during the battle for Irish Independance, so it was never involved in the trade war and continued to sell to Great Britain.
Describe Triple Distillation at Bushmills
There are 20 pot stills that run in combinations of three.
The wash stills operate per normal and charge the weak feints receiver (at 22-25% ABV), which then charges the intermediate (feints) still.
The intermediate fients still cuts into three the 1) heads and the weak feints go into the low wine receiver and are recycled back into the intermediate still. 2) The middle cut moves on to the strong feints receiver (70-75% ABV) and then into the spirits still. 3) and there is a little bit of spent lees.
The strong feints then go into the spirits still where cuts are made to 1) heads and tails that are recycled back to the weak feints and then back into the intermediate still, 2) the spirit which is captured at 84% and a little bit of spent lees.
Shortcross
County Down (N. Ireland) distillery owned by David Boyd-Armstrong and his wife Fiona.
Long fermentations (160-180 hrs)
make Single Pot (double distilled),
a Rye/Malt blend where they are both malted, and a heavily peated double distilled Single Malt
Killoween
Brendan Carty’s distillery on the shores of Carlingford Lough in County Down Northern Ireland.
Specializes in Single Pot, but not to the 2014 Technical File
-Ancient mash bills high rye and bulcan (50:50 peated oats to peated malt
-Ferments can last 14 days
-Stills are direct fired and spirit condenses in a worm
Echlinville
Shane Braniff & his wife Lynn - 600 acres estate on the Ards peninsula in County Down (N. Ireland)
-Dunvilles brand is sourced liquid
-Farm grower Eichinville range - grain, Malt and single pot is maturing
Ardara
-One of the legal distilleries bringing distillation back to Donegal after 200 years
-Crowd funded 500,000 litre distillery
-75% of production is Single Malt
25% of production is Single Pot
-all is either medium or heavily peated
-Pot still mash bill is 50:30:20 Peated malt, peated barley, and peated oats
-Mash converter and mash cooker
Lough Gill
-Outskirts of Sligo on the grounds of an old Palladian Mansion
-Overseen by master blender Helen Mulholldand (formerly of Bushmills)
-Broom book says owned by B-F, but we think it might now be Sazerac
-Originally intended for Paddy blend, but switched to Single Malt
-highly complex triple distillation system with 5 cuts being taken from spirits still
Name 11 distilleries in Northern Ireland?
Bushmills (Antrim)
Shortcross (County Down)
Killoween (County Down)
Echlinville (County Down)
Ardara (County Donegal)
Lough Gill (County Sligo)
Crolly
Baolliach (Carrickart)
HInch (Kilarney)
Titanic (Belfast)
McConnell’s (Belfast)
Name 8 distilleries in The Midlands of Ireland?
Great North (Dundalk)
Kilbeggan (
Boann (Drogheda)
Tullamore (Tullamore)
Powerscourt (Wicklow)
Slane
Church of Oak (Ballykelly Mills)
Royal (Carlow)
Great Northern Distillery
-Owned by John Teeling (after he sold Cooley’s to Beam in 2011)
-Former Harp brewery in Dundalk
-Producing grain malt and pot still for source market
-makes a gentle sweet style helped by cooling tubes in upward angled Lyne arms
Kilbeggan
-Once called Grenore - now renamed Kilbeggan along with it’s upeated range
-also the distillery formerly known as Cooley that was sold by John Teeling to Beam in 2011
-Orginally bought for it’s warehousing, and the Locke’s brand but began distilling again in 2007
-The pots are the oldest and maybe the smallest in Ireland
-in 2010 mashing and distilling started again, originally 100% for Kilbegan
-this is also the distillery that made peated Connamarra
Boann
-30 miles south of Cooney pennisula in Drogheda
-over 160 years after Drogheda’s last remaining distillery (Woolsey) closed the Cooley family opened Boann
-Created a center for Single Pot Still’s renaissance
-Mash converter helps ease processing of unmalted grains by allowing a specific temperature for each grain modification
-Ferments are long
-Stills are first at any distillery to use a copper-coated nano crystal coating each of the three stills lyne arms - increases the amount of available copper by six times removing sulphur laden elements from new make
-reflux controls can be enabled to make lighter spirit or disengaged to make heavier spirit
Tullamore
-sits at the geographic heart of Ireland
-draws from three different whiskey traditions:
1) Pot still
2) Single Malt
3) Single Grain (since 2017)
-Tullamore D.E.W. is the first Irish blend to be a blend of all three styles
-wheat based grain whiskey gives grassiness, the malt=fruit, and the pot still spice
-William Grant bought the brand in 2010 and within four years had a new malt distillery operational
