This is becoming a regular item... the world record for the largest Irish coffee has been broken again (previous record attempt, and the one before that).

What they all have in common is that they take place outside Ireland. This time the venue was Vinexpo in Bordeaux. It was very much an Irish effort, however, because the feat was achieved by the Hot Irishman company based in Carlow, using their own Irish-coffee-in-a-bottle product. Here's company founder, Bernard Walsh, with the 70-litre glass of Irish coffee behind him:

We're fans of Bernard's at Irish Whiskey Notes because his company also bottles a couple of quality whiskeys from casks selected personally by Bernard himself, along with, more recently, a limited edition cask strength. And the good news is that there will be more limited editions, each different and unique to The Irishman range.

Noel Sweeney, Master Blender, celebrates twenty years at Cooley Distillery this week. Since the distillery is not much older than that, and has never released a whiskey more than 16 years old, that means Noel has watched over every drop of your preferred Cooley spirit from distillation through maturation to bottling. It must be very gratifying to be able to compose some of the finest whiskeys coming out of Ireland today after waiting patiently all those years.

Here's the man himself, demonstrating how a cask is filled at the distillery:

Congratulations, Noel. Here's to twenty more years (and a thirty-odd year old bottle of Tyrconnell)!

Slane Castle was in the news at the weekend, hosting its near-annual rock concert. That always garners a lot of publicity and this year the castle's owners have taken the opportunity to unveil a new venture into Irish whiskey.

Slane Castle whiskey is a blend made by Cooley, to be sold in ten states in the eastern US (though it can also be found in the Celtic Whiskey Shop in Dublin). It's priced above Jameson and I think this is the reason it is described on the label as a "premium blend".

I tried this whiskey last Friday at a dinner hosted by Cooley and the Celtic Whiskey Shop. It's clearly very young, too young to enjoy neat, but that's intentional. This is unashamedly a mixing whiskey and it will fill that role just fine.

According to The Sunday Business Post, there is a Slane Castle aged single malt in the pipeline. This post on the Irish Whiskey Society forum from the Sunday Mirror's whiskey correspondent has more exclusive detail on the positioning of the new brand and the motivation behind it.

While I hope the whiskey helps to keep the lights on at Slane Castle, the business seems like a long shot to me. Can anyone succeed against Jameson in the low-end blend category, especially with a more expensive product? Higher-end whiskeys don't fare much better. The obvious comparison is with Castle Brands, owners of Knappogue Castle whiskey. They have been selling fine, collectable single malts in the same eastern US market for the last decade but are still struggling to turn a profit (Irish whiskey is only one part of their business, however).

I've been too overwhelmed with work recently to tend to Irish Whiskey Notes. But I haven't neglected whiskey - I have been actively involved in the setting up of the Irish Whiskey Society, in particular its website.

We have had three meetings to date and have sampled some very interesting whiskeys already. A formal committee has been nominated whose immediate task will be to file the legal papers, set up the bank account and start raking in the membership dues.

Everyone, member or not, is welcome to join the developing discussion on the forum (kudos to IrishWhiskeyChaser who is taking the admin lead over there). I am amazed by the depth of knowledge of Irish whiskey among some of the society members and now that expertise is on tap in the forum. I expect to learn a lot hanging out there.

The smell from the Guinness brewery that wafts along the Liffey towards Dublin's city centre is one that every Dubliner knows intimately. There was genuine concern last year while Diageo were reviewing the future of their operations at St James's Gate that this unique and pleasing aroma might be no more. Thankfully, Diageo decided to retain the plant, even before the recession put their plans to invest in a new brewery in Kildare on hold.

I had the opportunity recently to ask someone who knows the brewing profession what generates that distinctive smell. You can see from the answer (reproduced below with kind permission) that the brewing process shares much in common with whiskey manufacture. Indeed it's often said that whiskey is just distilled beer.

On the Guinness smells, there are actually a few different ones:

• Smell of the roasting. These are the coffee /roasty / smoky smells that come from the roasting of the barley.

• Smell of the mashing. This is when they add the ground malt into the mash vessel with hot water (liquor). You get a pleasant sweet cooking smell - biscuity / sweet / grainy (like digestive biscuits but more the retronasal smell while you are eating them).

• Smell from the boiling of the wort. Wort is the liquid extract from the malt containing all the sugars and the malt flavours. When it is boiled these flavours (similar to those described above) as well as flavours from the hops evaporate. The hops give green / herby / floral notes to the overall malty and roasty flavours.

More on coffee and Obama

A few pictures have surfaced to illustrate stories I posted previously. Obama's cask of Cooley whiskey appears in an article by Conor O'Clery in The Global Post. It's cask no. 16110, containing 200 litres at 64% ABV (it's normal to mature at a high ABV since the alcohol evaporates as time passes; it will be diluted to the desired strength at the bottling stage).

And here are the manufacturer's snaps of the giant glass made for the assault on the World Record for the largest Irish coffee. An English company called Laboratory Equipment Ltd hand made the 60 litre monster. It's great to see there are still specialist manufacturing companies in these islands that can tackle one-off projects like this.

Research and fact-checking - first casualties of the recession?

Compare these two paragraphs in recent editions of two British newspapers. They are both from articles on the flood of Irish shoppers heading north of the border to exploit the current euro/pound exchange rate.

From The Sunday Times, 8 Feb, 2009:

It's easy to see why: a litre of Jameson Irish whiskey costs £19.99 (€22.85) in Newry, compared to €38.59 in Dunnes Stores, Dublin, the city where it is actually distilled.

From The Daily Telegraph, 27 Feb, 2009:

It's easy to see why. [...] A litre of Jameson Irish whiskey costs the equivalent of 20 euros in Newry and 38 euros in Dublin, the city where it's distilled.

Hmm, different newspapers, different authors, similar phrasing and the same glaring error (Jameson is distilled in Cork, not Dublin). Pure coincidence, no doubt.

Whiskey reviews from around the net (and the Klingon homeworld?)

This article on epicurious matching Irish whiskey with cheeses and other foods is pretty inspiring. The BoozeBasher offers an idiosyncratic review of Bushmills Original while the Whisky Boys tackle Bushmills 10yo single malt. Kevin Erskine is a fan of Irish whiskey as a cocktail base. And finally, Rich Nagle ponders the connection between Clontarf Whiskey and the Klingon language. Qapla'!

It's an uncomfortable fact that I don't report much on those big Irish whiskey brands, Powers and Paddy. The truth is I never hear anything about them. Their stablemate in the Pernod Ricard portfolio, Jameson, gets all the attention.

While Pernod has done a wonderful job selling Jameson to the world and raising the profile of Irish whiskey at home and abroad, Powers and Paddy have languished in the home market.

The three brands were once made by three different companies that merged in the 1960s to form Irish Distillers (IDL). Under the IDL banner they retained their distinctiveness and the allegiances they had built up among whiskey drinkers.

Pernod Ricard took over IDL in 1988 and since then have put their marketing and distribution muscle exclusively behind Jameson. This inevitably had its effect, even in Ireland, where Jameson replaced Powers as the most popular Irish whiskey a few years ago.

I haven't been able to put numbers on this up till now because Powers and Paddy are completely ignored in the Pernod financial reports. But we now have those figures, courtesy of an article in today's Irish Times:

Ten years ago, 225,000 cases of Powers were sold annually in Ireland.

Since then, according to data compiled by International Wine and Spirit Record, Powers sales have declined by almost 40 per cent. ...

The result is that, while in 1998 Powers outsold Jameson in Ireland by 75,000 cases, by 2007 Jameson was outselling Powers by 120,000 cases.

In the same period, Paddy sales declined by 40,000 cases.

The final line echoes the worries we have all had regarding Pernod's stewardship of these heritage brands:

... you have to wonder whether Irish Distillers is adopting the correct strategy with three mass market brands of basically the same product in such a small market.

I'm sure that's how it looks in Paris but an Irish whiskey drinker will tell you that Paddy, Powers and Jameson are very different products, despite being made in the same plant in Midleton. While all three are blends, Powers is the spicy one, with a higher pure pot still content than Jameson. Paddy is the lightest, and contains malt whiskey alongside the grain and pure pot still. All are excellent everyday whiskeys and it would be a tragedy to lose any of them.

The good news reported in the same article is that Irish Distillers is beginning a €500,000 ad campaign in Ireland to boost the profile of Powers. Perhaps Irish drinkers could help the effort to preserve these historic brands by replacing the Jameson in their glasses by Paddy or Powers.