Connemara Single Cask Amontillado Finish

Up to the 1970s, fortified wines were still being imported to Ireland in the cask. The famous wine distributors like Mitchells, Gilbeys and Findlaters would reuse the emptied casks by filling them with fresh spirit from Jameson and maturing the whiskey in their cellars for 7 years or more. I often wonder what this fully sherry-matured whiskey was like (today we mostly use ex-bourbon casks).

The tradition died out when new rules forced wine producers to bottle before export. The supply of casks dried up and the wine importers exited the business of maturing whiskey themselves.

The Celtic Whiskey Shop, however, is reviving the practice. The shop also stocks wine and has been asking its various suppliers to send an empty cask or two to Ireland. Cooley then fills the casks with whiskey for "finishing". This is where a whiskey that has been aged for, say, 8 years in an ex-bourbon barrel is refilled into a different cask for the last year or two of its maturation. This can make a very striking difference to the final whiskey.

The shop released the Tyrconnell Ànima Negra, finished in a Mallorcan wine cask, last year. This month sees the unveiling of the Connemara Cask 155 Emilio Hidalgo Amontillado Finish. There is a good story behind it. Bodegas Emilio Hidalgo told the shop that they don't buy or sell casks and, indeed, hadn't bought a new cask in 40 years. That's because they use the solera process for maturing sherry, which never actually empties a cask but draws off a portion and immediately refills it with slightly younger stock.

You can imagine that the sherry over the decades has had time to thoroughly permeate the wood. Contrast this with the sherry casks typically used in an Irish distillery which have been "seasoned" with sherry for only two years. Those have typically been filled with Oloroso sherry. Amontillado is not dissimilar but it has a slightly less oxidised character.

Anyway, they convinced the producer to part with a cask and it has spent the last 12 months maturing some of Cooley's peated malt. It has been bottled at 46% and goes for €110 but is currently on offer at €95. I haven't tried it yet but those who have rave about it. The shop has some tasting notes:

Intense and pronounced on the nose. Aromas reminiscent of kippers smoking, bonfires on the beach, tarred rope, flint smoke, hessian sacks, dried figs, dates, Christmas cake and chocolate. On the palate it starts off sweet and fruity with flavours of sultanas, dates, and candied orange peel then the smoke and spice comes through with notes of peat fires, spiced fruits and sea spray.

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The cooperage at Kilbeggan Distillery

If you visit Kilbeggan Distillery museum, you will get to clamber about a largely intact 19th-century distillery. There is a working waterwheel connected to driveshafts and belts; a steam engine backup for the waterwheel; fermenting vats; a large cast-iron mash tun; some huge pot stills; and three sets of millstones that ground up the malt. None of this old kit is used in the service of whiskey-making today but there is an active distillery on the same site that looks surprisingly similar in many respects.

Part of the tour is a recreation of the cooperage, ie where casks were repaired or assembled. Here it is:

The old cooperage

Cooley's working cooperage is also within Kilbeggan Distillery. This is it:

The new cooperage

I took that photo last week, but there is little, if anything, in that scene that helps date it to within a century. Or, indeed, a millennium. Cooley's full-time cooper, John Neilly, is old-school. There's a table saw for making a straight cut, but there aren't many straight cuts in a cask so, for the most part, he shapes and coerces the wood with hand tools.

Two adzes, a topper and (behind) a croze

These are the traditional tools of the cooper, the same my grandfather, and his father, would have known and used. John very kindly offered to show me (and my folks) some of the skills and processes involved in a trade that died out in my family - and Ireland - long before I had a chance to appreciate it.

When we arrived, John was repairing an ex-bourbon cask that had perhaps slipped off a pallet and struck the ground hard along one edge. Half-a-dozen or more of the staves had cracked so John had removed the iron hoops holding the cask together and was swapping in fresh staves from a sacrificial cask. These weren't quite the same length so he squared them off first before fitting.

John Neilly adding new staves in place of damaged ones

Some quick work with an adze restored the tapered stave endings, while a crumb knife shaved a neat, smooth curve to the inner surface of the cask. The croze added the notch that the cask end would sit snugly into. John invited me to try my hand at each of these. The wood yielded like butter under the adze and crumb knife but the croze has a knack to it that escaped me. I hope I didn't chip away any useful parts of the cask!

Crumb knife

Something new to me was the use of dried rushes to seal the joins in the cask. John inspected the reconstructed cask, judging where there might be a risk of a leak. He then forced apart the staves at this point and inserted a rush. Apparently the Americans use beeswax for sealing, but rushes do the job in Scotland and Ireland.

Inserting a dried rush between staves

Also a little unexpected was a spot of metal-bashing right there in the workshop. The iron hoops loosen over time so John often removes the rivets holding them together and taps in a couple of new ones. I had never seen a rivet being driven. It looks like tough work. I never imagined it was easy but I did think rivets went in hot, semi-molten, and somewhat malleable. Not here though; they were cold.

There is more hammering to drive the hoops on tightly, and to persuade the staves to lie flush. In Kilbeggan, John works alone but he has also toiled in cooperages of up to 30 men. The racket must have been immense!

Hoop driving

While we were there, John regaled us with lots of stories from his almost 45 years of coopering. When he started, in Scotland, a cooper in a distillery would kick off the day with a dram. No half-measures either, but a generous pour. More was had at regular intervals throughout the day. The labour was so intense, there was no chance to feel any effects from this, and drunkenness was certainly not tolerated. Coopers were paid by the cask so productivity was very high and men would literally run to fetch new material to work on.

It sounds like a tough trade, but a very satisfying one to master. Whiskey would be nothing without its time in cask. The interaction between spirit and wood is a kind of alchemy, and Cooley is very fortunate to have a master cooper who can not only repair a cask but can create new types of cask to stretch the raw spirit in creative directions. Alex Chasko, the Innovation Manager at Cooley, hopes to lay his hands on some fresh Irish oak, for example, which John will craft into brand new casks. We are used to the influence of pre-seasoned American and European oak on our whiskey but what will Irish oak do? Nobody knows, but thanks to John's mastery of an ancient craft handed down over countless generations, we will find out.

I'd like to thank John Neilly for giving very generously of his time and knowledge, and Bernadette and Brian Quinn of Kilbeggan Distillery for allowing us the behind-the-scenes access. We came away with a new appreciation for the remarkable, fascinating and ever-changing operation at Kilbeggan.

John Neilly, Cooper

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Bloom!

There wasn't a cloud in the sky over Dublin today, perfect weather for the annual Bloom garden festival in the Phoenix Park. I was there as a guest of Metalman Brewing. I don't know much about beer but after a long walk in the sunshine up Chesterfield Avenue, a glass of their brew truly hit the spot. It could easily tempt me away from the hard liquor. Great name and logo too.

There is whiskey in this story, don't worry. I met Linda, Alex and John from Cooley, reminding Irish foodies that there is an independent, Irish-owned distillery. John was doling out his Spiked Apple cocktails. So refreshing. He'll have to tweet the recipe because that's a secret that should be shared with the world. I've heard him say before that you can still taste the Kilbeggan whiskey in a long drink and now I can vouch for it. It shone through the apple and lemonade. Very pleasant.

From Alex, I heard the news that the bog oak-matured Connemara is ready to ship. I've mentioned this before, when Alex presented it as an experiment to the Irish Whiskey Society. The ends of three casks were replaced with bog oak and used to finish Connemara malt. The casks were stored on their sides. I'll have to confirm the details later but it probably won't have an age statement, though at least some of it is 12 years old.

Round the corner, I met Alex Mount Charles, of Slane Castle fame. He has been building the Slane Castle whiskey brand for the past two years. Manufacture is contracted out to Cooley but he has a great vision of where it could go, including growing and malting the barley on site and distilling right there at the castle. I really hope it happens.

That's it for the whiskey buzz from Bloom, though I did run into the guys who make Bluebell Falls Goats Cheese. Their hard cheese was one of those matched with whiskey at our Whiskey & Cheese night last year. Today I had the chance to tell them how well their cheese was received by the society members.

There were lots of artisan food and drink producers at Bloom and I had my fill of cheese, pulled pork sandwiches, cookies and so on. I discussed woodturning with the Irish Woodturners Guild and I even toured the show gardens though I'm not a gardener. There was such a good atmosphere there and so much to see. I had a wonderful time.

Bloom is on for two more days. Go!