Last Night's Tipple

I had the last of my bottle of my Tullamore Dew 12 year old last night, and good riddance. There's really not a whole lot to like in it, at least for me. It has this dirty sweatsock character to it that I attribute to the unmalted barley in the mash, and I don't particularly like dirty sweatsocks. With some time in the glass, that particular aroma mellows a bit, and I'm left with some hits of vanilla and bits of spice that aren't unpleasant. However, I'd really just spend the extra $8 a fifth to get Redbreast, which is a lovely whiskey all the way around.

As I have written before, the "Dew" part of the Tullamore Dew name is supposedly an acronym for Daniel E. Williams, a general manager of the Tullamore Distillery in the 19th Century. That sounds just a little bit too pat to me, and I had originally thought that "dew" had to refer to whiskey. After all, American moonshine is sometimes called mountain dew, and more than one Scotch distillery has the Gaelic word "dhu" in the name (Dallas Dhu, Tamdhu, and possibly others). However, the Internet assures me that the Gaelic word "dhu" means black, and I can't think of a legitimate way to twist that into whiskey. So maybe the story about Daniel E. Williams is true after all.

Last Night's Tipple

Charles MacLean's MacLean's Miscellany of Whisky reprints an anecdote about George IV's visit to Scotland in 1824 from Elizabeth Grant's memoirs. Miss Grant was the daughter of a prominent Edinburgh lawyer who, despite his lack of noble credentials, made quite an impression on the king's party. She writes:

Lord Conyngham, the Lord Chamberlain, was looking everywhere for pure Glenlivet whisky; the King drank nothing else. It was not to be had out of the Highlands. My father sent word to me -- I was the cellarer -- to empty my pet bin, where there was whisky lond in wood, long in uncorked bottles, mild as milk, and the true contraband goût in it. Much as I grudged this treasure, it made our fortunes afterwards, showing on what trifles great events depend. The whisky, and fifty brace of ptarmigan all shot by one man, went up to Holyrood House, and were graciously received and made much of, and a reminder of this attention at a proper moment by the gentlemanly Chamberlain ensured to my father the Indian Judgeship. (p. 98)

What does this have to do with Redbreast, which, after all, is Irish whiskey, not Scotch? Absolutely nothing, with the exception of the phrase "mild as milk," which came to mind while I was enjoying a dram of this last night. It is indeed mild as milk -- smooth, sweet, flavorsome, and pleasant. If someone doesn't like Redbreast, he will not like whisk(e)y of any sort. It's simply wonderful.

Last Night's Tipple

Originally, most Irish Whiskey was made from 100% malted barley. Then, in the middle of the 18th Century, Ireland's British overlords instituted a tax on malt. In addition to riots, this provoked the Irish (or, at least, many of them) to stop making their whiskey from all malt but instead to combine both malted and unmalted barley in their mashes. Incidentally, the same is true for Irish beer: the institution of the malt tax in the 18th Century is indirectly responsible for Guinness's recipe for their stout, which contains a percentage of unmalted barley.

Whiskey made in pot stills from a mash of both malted and unmalted barley has come to be known as pot still whiskey, and for two centuries, pure pot still whiskey was synonymous with Irish Whiskey. The end of Prohibition in the US also ended the reign of pure pot still whiskey in Ireland. Irish distillers bet correctly that Prohibition had lightened America's tastes in whiskey, so they began to blend pot still whiskey with column-distilled grain whiskeys to produce a lighter product. Now, virtually all Irish Whiskey is blended. The only two brands that remain pure pot still whiskey are Green Spot, which is rarely if ever seen in the United States, and Redbreast.

Redbreast originated in 1939 as a brand owned by Gilbey's, a wine and spirits company. It was made from Jameson's whiskey, which, at that time and up until 1968 was sold entirely in bulk to independent bottlers. Redbreast was never much of big seller, but Gilbey's continued to bottle it just as it always had been, from 100% pot still whiskey. By the time Irish Distillers acquired the brand in the 1990s, it was a dinosaur. Someone at Irish Distillers (now owned by Pernod Ricard) realized what a gem they had, and it was relaunched as a 12 year old. All of the whiskey that goes into it is distilled at the Midleton Distillery in County Cork, but that's hardly unusual. Most Irish Whiskey comes from there now.

The problem that I have with the blended Irish Whiskey that I have tried from Midleton (Jameson's and Tullamore Dew) is that it has this off aroma that I can only describe as being like dirty sweatsocks. Not appetizing at all to me, but I suppose that some people might like it. That aroma is not at all present in Redbreast. There's a slightly sour smell overlayed by lots of vanilla and nuts. On the palate, it's smooth, smooth, smooth. This whiskey has lots of character and is the best Irish whiskey that I have ever tried. It's not cheap at $42 a fifth, but it is good and well-worth seeking out.

Last Night's Tipple

The Scottish like to think of Scotland as the mother of whisky, but that honor probably belongs to Ireland, with Scotland being a relative Johnny-come-lately in the world of distillation. By the 19th Century, Irish Whiskey had developed a style similar to that of Scotch but distinct. Where Scotch (at least malt Scotch) used only malted barley, the Irish had begun to use a mashbill of both malted and unmalted barley because of a tax on malt. Where Scotch malt was dried over peat fires, Irish malt was dried via indirect heat from coal fires. Where Scotch distillers typically distilled their spirit twice in pot stills, the Irish tended to opt for a triple distillation, which produced a lighter, cleaner spirit.

A combination of factors, including overproduction and Prohibition in the United States, conspired to bring hard times on the Irish distilling business. There used to be dozens of commercial distilleries in Ireland. Today there are three: Bushmills (actually in Northern Ireland), which produces only malt whiskey; Midleton, in County Cork; and Cooley, a recent start-up on the Cooley Peninsula and the producers of Ireland's only peated malt whiskey (Connemara). Most of the Irish Whiskey sold today, including most of the grand old brands that are still extant, is distilled at Midleton, which is truly an industrial-scale distillery. That includes Tullamore Dew. The Tullamore Distillery in central Ireland began production in 1829, and its flagship brand began production in the closing years of the 19th Century. Supposedly, "Dew" is an acronym of the name of the distillery's general manager, Daniel E. Williams, although that sounds like a just-so story to me. What isn't a just-so story is Tullamore's famous advertising slogan: "Give every man his Dew." Williams's grandson, touring the US in 1947, observed that the tastes of American drinkers had shifted to a lighter-bodied product, and this observation led him to introduce Tullamore Dew blended whiskey in that year. This was the first blended Irish whiskey on the market, and it was the beginning of a trend that almost killed Irish malt and pot-still whiskey. It didn't save Tullamore, though, and the distillery closed in 1959. The brand didn't die, though, and it's owned by a firm called Cantrell & Cochrane, which contracts out production to Midleton.

The 12 year old bottling that I have is a bit older and more expensive than plain old Tullamore Dew. It's still a blended product, and the vanilla aromas that waft up from the glass make this clear. In addition, though, there is this unique pungent sour smell that is hard to describe but that Tullamore Dew shares with other blended Irish Whiskey that I've tried like Jameson's. I don't know what it is -- maybe it's the unmalted barley from the whiskey's pot still component. I'm not sure if I like it or not, but it is distinctive. The palate is smooth, sweet, and not particularly memorable. This whiskey is okay but not spectacular, and I don't think that I'll buy it again when this bottle is gone. I will gladly try a 100% pot still whiskey like Redbreast, though, or a premium blend like Midleton Very Rare.