Irish Distillers to hike prices

A poster on a boards.ie forum warns of imminent price increases from Irish Distillers (IDL). I referred only last week to IDL's strategy of premiumisation. So this is just more of the same.

If you are thinking of buying a bottle of premium whiskey locally, buy it sooner rather than later.

Irish Distillers ... are increasing their prices from March 10th.

Biggest increases are on Redbreast 12yo +15%; Jameson 18yo +25%; Midleton Very Rare +20%.

Review: The Story of Irish Whiskey (CD)

A four-part series on Irish whiskey was broadcast on Irish radio in 2005. This is still available for purchase from the RTE website. Not much information is given there so I have listed the contents below.

As an introduction to Irish whiskey, I'd rate this series pretty highly. It quickly gets beyond the necessarily simplified tour guide version of the story of Irish whiskey by visiting all of the working distilleries on the island. We hear the voices of those directly responsible for production of spirit and learn about the many different ways the final product can be influenced, from the choice of raw material to the exact combination of casks used for aging.

All the big names from Irish whiskey are here. We have, for example, the master distillers from Midleton, Cooley and Bushmills; the founder of Cooley, John Teeling; and John Ryan of Irish Distillers who is a descendant of the famous whiskey titan, John Power.

There are some fascinating anecdotes along the way. For example, Connemara peated whiskey was apparently a stealth project concealed from the directors of Cooley by the production team until it had already matured for some years. It was a risky venture but it became a great success so no heads rolled.

The series was recorded before Irish Distillers sold Bushmills to Diageo so the links between Midleton and Bushmills are not so tight now, three years on. Also, the plan to restart the Kilbeggan distillery has progressed with one old still fired up again.

Aside from that, the information in this series is still current and would make a fine place to start for anyone developing an interest in Irish whiskey.

[Many thanks to Peter Dunne of Mitchell & Son wine merchants (sellers of the legendary Green Spot) for pointing me towards this series. I missed it when originally broadcast.]

Part 1: The Origins of Whiskey
Old Jameson Distillery - Niall Stewart
Lockes Distillery Museum - John Deegan & Pearse Corcoran
Kilbeggan and the distillery - Brian Quinn

Part 2: Midleton Distillery
The Golden Ages of Irish Whiskey - John Ryan
Distilling tradition - Barry Crockett
Old Midleton Distillery - David Byrne
New Distillery - Barry Crockett
Midleton tasting notes - Ally Alpine

Part 3: Bushmills Distillery & Green Spot
Location - Colum Egan
History of Bushmills Distillery - Sheelagh Croskery
Distillery Tour - Colum Egan
Blending - Billy Leighton
Green Spot - Peter Dunne
Bushmills and Green Spot tasting notes - Ally Alpine
Favourite Whiskey - Colum Egan

Part 4: Cooley Distillery
Beginings and Distilling processes - John Teeling
Cooley Distillery's Blender - Noel Sweeney
Cooperage in Kilbeggan - John Neely
Maturation Warehouses - Brian Quinn
Cooley tasting notes - Ally Alpine
The Future of Irish Whiskey - John Ryan and John Teeling

Weekly Whiskey Miscellany

Tastings

Bushmills 1608 (John Hansell) and Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve (John Hansell, Bill Dowd).

Irish whiskey volumes still growing fast

The two giants in the Irish whiskey business, Diageo and Pernod-Ricard, released interim half-year results recently. Sales of Bushmills (Diageo) rose 9% (according to The Irish Times business section on Friday; I couldn't find mention of this on Diageo's site).

Sales of Jameson were up 16%, in volume terms, and 23% in value terms, reflecting Pernod-Ricard's successful strategy to "premiumise" Jameson (i.e. persuade consumers that Jameson is a quality drink that is worth paying a little more for).

Jameson now sells 2.3m case equivalents per year (a case equivalent is nine litres of spirit). Pernod-Ricard aims to shift 3m c/e by 2010.

We also learned from the Jameson results that Irish whiskey is the fastest growing spirit category globally (9.6%). Compare that to malt whiskey (5.2%, presumably excluding Irish malt whiskey) and blended Scotch (4%).

Of course the usual caveat applies: Irish whiskey is growing off a relatively small base.

Scotch tasting in Dublin next week

The Celtic Whiskey Shop is hosting a Scotch tasting in Dublin next week. No Irish whiskey involved but the Auchentoshan won't offend anyone who prefers Irish to Scotch.

I assume that, as usual, tickets are available in advance from the Celtic Whiskey Shop.

A Tutored Tasting by Jamie McKenzie of Morrison Bowmore Distillers

Thursday, 21st February 6.30pm, The Liberties Suite, Brooks Hotel, Drury Street, Dublin 2

Tickets 20 Euro, Limited Availability.

Jamie McKenzie will host a tasting of whiskies from Bowmore, Auchentoshan and Glen Garioch distilleries. Three very varied distilleries: the peaty Bowmore from Islay which won the award for best single malt in the world; the triple distilled non-peaty Auchentoshan from near Glasgow; and the less well known but equally impressive Highland malt Glen Garioch. Tickets are available on a first come first served basis.

The colour of whiskey

I spent a couple of hours this week at the famous Kildare Street shop of Dublin wine merchants, Mitchell & Son. Mr Peter Dunne, Director, very kindly took me through the history of the company and, more particularly, the development of their own brand of whiskey, Green Spot.

I have more research to do on Green Spot, one of Ireland's last remaining pure pot still whiskeys, so I'll have to leave that story for another day.

In the meantime, here is an interesting bit of whiskey ephemera that I was shown from the Mitchells archive (click on the picture to see a larger version).


The text on the card reads:

Colour of John Jameson Whiskey

Our attention has been drawn to the considerable diversity of colour at which our whiskey is bottled by the trade.

We therefore would be very much obliged if bonders would send out their bottlings of John Jameson Whiskey at 15 tint, 52 series, 1" cell (Lovibond Tintometer).

For a guide, the coloured space on this card should be compared with a full ten glass bottle by placing the bottle centrally behind the open space, and touching the card. Hold the card and bottle up to the light or against a white background, and a very fair idea of the correct tint at which to bottle will be obtained.

Up until the 1960s, the Jameson distillery did not bottle its own whiskey for sale in the Irish market. Instead it supplied whiskey by the cask to independent bottlers who bottled it and sold it to the public.

The issue of quality control and protection from adulteration had long troubled the various distillers so here we can see one attempt to impose at least some consistency on the final product.

I'm not sure how the bottler was supposed to control colour in those days. Obviously the amount of dilution of the cask-strength whiskey was determined by the desired alcoholic strength of the bottled liquid. The colour of the whiskey should have been determined solely by the type of cask used and the length of time it had been aged.

These days caramel is used to achieve a consistent colour from year to year. I'll try to find out what was done in times past.

A "ten glass bottle", by the way, would seem to refer to the standard bottle volume of 26 2/3 fluid ounces (roughly 0.75 litres). A single measure of spirits in Ireland was 2.5 fluid ounces to the glass so a normal bottle would hold a little more than ten measures.

The company behind the wonderfully named "Lovibond Tintometer" is still going strong.

Weekly Whiskey Miscellany

The Jameson Juggernaut rolls on

The volume of Jameson sold in the second half of 2007 was up 16% compared with the same period in 2006 (Pernod-Ricard press release).

Irish Distillers sues Cooley

One of the high-growth markets for Jameson is Russia. Irish Distillers, the makers of Jameson, are seeking to protect that market by bringing Cooley Distillery to court. They wish to prevent Cooley bottling a whiskey for a Russian distributor that they claim is too similar in appearance to Jameson.

Judge for yourself whether St Patrick's Whiskey is likely to be confused with Jameson.

I'm sure Cooley are wondering why they have been targeted rather than the Russian company that designed the bottle. Perhaps IDL doesn't fancy its chances in a Russian court.

An endorsement for Tullamore Dew
Kevin Erskine, of The Scotch Blog, describes a non-Scotch whiskey tasting he hosted recently. "The Tullamore Dew was also a surprising hit - selected because of its exemplary Irish Blend softness, many of the attendees enjoyed the light taste."

Tasting Bushmills 1608
Sticking with The Scotch Blog, here's a tasting of Bushmill's latest release, the 1608, that I mentioned a while ago.