Danny Boy 15 year old Irish whiskey

I was tipped off to a new Irish whiskey this week (thanks, John!): Danny Boy 15 Year Old Malt Whiskey. It's part of a larger range of Danny Boy giftware launched by Peter Lavery, former Belfast bus driver, now prominent businessman (there's a good story in there, worth a read).

You might think that a whiskey destined to be part of a range of "giftware" would be all brand and no substance, a cheap blend with no age statement. Not in this case. I'm guessing that Mr Lavery knows his whiskey because he has persuaded Cooley Distillery to bottle a 15 year old single malt. Cooley's own top-of-the-range malt, Tyrconnell, doesn't come any older than that. The plan, according to the website, is to release Danny Boy as a limited edition of 2,500 bottles.

So there is a very good chance that this will be a superb whiskey. The only catch is that it's not available yet. This is where I have to sound a more cautious note. The website has clearly not been updated since the end of last year and the company has not responded to an email I sent two days ago. While the whiskey was supposed to available "from January 2008", there is as yet no picture of the bottle on the site and no indication as to the revised date for its release.

If I hear more, I'll post it here.

Whiskey Miscellany

OK, I'm going to stop pretending that these Whiskey Miscellany posts are "Weekly". I just do them whenever I have collected a few small news items that don't merit individual posts.

Going for an English

I only cover Irish whiskey but the imminent arrival of an English variety is surely worth a mention. Why boutique distilleries like this haven't appeared in Ireland is a mystery.

Not-so-modern Marvel

The History Channel in the US is going to show an episode of Modern Marvels devoted to whiskey on St Patrick's Day. This will include a look at the Midleton Distillery in Cork.

Ouch!

The UK is sobering up after Budget Day saw a 6% increase in excise duty on spirits. That's bad enough but the government has committed to raising it in each of the next four years too by 2% above the rate of inflation.

Marking St Patrick's Day

St Patrick's Day in Ireland is notable for the mass departure of government ministers to foreign lands to promote everything Irish. The distillers have the same idea, knowing that drinkers might be more receptive to sampling their wares while caught up in the spirit of the occasion.

In my expat days I was impressed when I found a bottle of Jameson in a bar abroad, St Patrick's Day or not. Today though, Irish whiskey seems to be reaching all sorts of unusual places.

I've never been to the mountainous parts of Switzerland or the Basque region of Spain but I am informed that parched travellers to these spots can count on ready access to a range of Irish whiskey restoratives.

The Smallest Whisky Bar on Earth (that is it's name and an accurate description it appears to be too) resides in the municipality of Santa Maria Val Müstair, Graubünden, Switzerland. Wikipedia tells me that the population of Santa Maria Val Müstair is 346. And yet it supports a bar with a better range of Irish whiskeys than most pubs in Dublin.

Irish Week (Mar 15-23) at the bar will feature the new Bushmills 1608 Anniversary whiskey and Cooley's single grain whiskey, Greenore. Detlef Sommar also tells me that "our mineral water for this week is green, and we have Irish folk music. Outside the bar we will have the Irish flag and inside we have a lot of decoration from Guinness, so all is very Irish."

Check out the rest of their whiskeys here.

Now, from the world's smallest whiskey bar to the world's largest pub collection of Irish whiskey... it's Scanlan's Tavern in Gernika (or, more familiarly, Guernica), Spain. Basque country!


Scanlan's is an Irish bar run by the eponymous Patrick Scanlan, whiskey sommelier and Irish whiskey crusader, according to his blog. Patrick runs whiskey tastings and events and has founded the Hibernian Whiskey Society so the Euskaldunak (the Basque people; I'm getting a lot of mileage out of Wikipedia tonight) are well served with regard to our national spirit.

St Patrick's Day will be marked with a Jameson whiskey party night on Friday 14th and a Bushmills whiskey/rugby party on the Saturday. Non-whiskey related events include a Tír na nÓg kiddies party in the beer garden on Sunday.

Not sure what I'll be doing yet on Paddy's Day...

New Feature: The Irish Whiskey Explorer

It has been more than a few days since my last update here. My excuse is that I have been working on a new feature: The Irish Whiskey Explorer.

The Explorer greatly extends the old table of whiskeys I had. You can now click on any particular whiskey to be taken to a page dedicated to that whiskey. This means there is now plenty of space to provide extra tidbits of information, for example links to tasting notes.

There are still one or two rough edges to be sorted out. There is also plenty more detail I can add to round out the description of each whiskey. But I'll take care of that as time goes on.

I hope you find it useful!