A commenter below who sounds familiar with the situation remarks:
The island of Inishturkbeg is in receivership, which just covers the hospitality business. The brand business, of which whiskey is the principal part, has always been run independently and is not in receivership. Plans continue for the development of whiskey, branded Inish Turk Beg (and Eternal Voyage is the follow up to Maiden Voyage as a product) and other iterations from Clew Bay, more generally.Reassuring news!
The Sunday Times last weekend reported that receivers have been appointed to the company that owns Inish Turk Beg, an island off the west of Ireland. For the moment, it's business as usual but the receivers will want to generate cash for the creditors that appointed them so it's likely that the island will go on the block in the near future.
The entrepreneur who owned the island, Nadim Sadek, an Irish-Egyptian, spawned all sorts of ventures from his Inish Turk Beg base. The one that interests us here is whiskey.
Plenty of companies have tapped Cooley Distillery for whiskey they can label as their own. Inish Turk Beg could have done just that and left it there but, with admirable integrity, they put their own twist on the whiskey in various creative ways.
They ensured a good base to begin with: roughly 10-year old Cooley malt (very fine stuff indeed, in my opinion). They took thirteen expired ex-bourbon barrels, filled them with "poitÃn" for a year (Cooley new make spirit, I presume), emptied them and then left them to weather on the island (for how long, I don't know). The Cooley malt was then finished in these seasoned barrels (again, I don't know how long for).
Another touch was to use rainwater, fresh off the Atlantic, to water down the cask-strength spirit to bottling strength of 44%. The final presentation was also unusual: a spherical, tilted, hand-blown bottle. 2,888 of these one-litre bottles were produced.
I've been calling this "Inish Turk Beg" whiskey ever since it was released in late 2010 but I've just realised it's actually called Maiden Voyage. The intention was to release a follow-up called Eternal Voyage but we haven't seen that yet.
With the attractive presentation and the various unique touches it should fly off the shelves. Maybe it does, for all I know, but I suspect the price gives buyers pause: €155 in Ireland. That's a lot for 10-year old Cooley malt. It's a lot for any Irish whiskey. While it's nice (though a little softer than I anticipated) it's more than I could spend on a whiskey for drinking. As I write, for example, I'm enjoying a Grand Crew 9yo Cooley malt that I absolutely love but only cost me €60. A 10-year old port finish Tyrconnell would set me back the same.
I hope this isn't the end of the story for Inish Turk Beg whiskey. I imagine that Nadim Sadek is the kind of guy who wouldn't have been happy until he had his own distillery on the island. I wish him luck in whatever he does next. I hope it involves whiskey.
8 comments:
Mediocre whiskey, gimmicky concept, overblown packaging, preposterous price point.
In a global recession, it was always doomed to fail.
I think the price was partly a consequence of the bells and whistles. But I'm always in favour of trying something new. You never know what will come out of it. They weren't gimmicks but an imaginative attempt to tweak the variables that were available. Another iteration could have seen a small warehouse on the island, say, maturing spirit for the full term. Good experiments, but expensive.
I liked the whiskey, but not at that price. And I'm not sure what the poitin or Atlantic winds did to the whiskey. I believe the bottle was very expensive to make. Hopefully they'll get back on their feet.
The poitin-finishing is quite clever, I think. The old wood might have been two tired to absorb the new make but the idea is sound, would you not say? For example, IDL seasons its sherry casks with sherry for only two years.
It's a way to get some new make influence back into a mature whiskey. I can't say if that's desirable but at least it should have an effect.
I get the impression that poitin would only take away the rawness of the wood - like the bourbon would have done originally. I don't know. But these casks are already "expired", so I'm not sure what it would do. The wood is what does most of the work.
I don't think it would freshen a cask. This is just me speculating, rather than giving any definitive information...
I believe his whole business is in administration or receivership, rather than just his whiskey business? Is this the case? If so, I'm not sure anyone can say the Maiden Voyage has been a failure. I have no idea, really. Maybe it has been.
I agree with you: the third-fill casks probably negated the experiment, and I'm sure you can't freshen a cask this way, otherwise distilleries would be doing it.
Yes, it's the company that owns the island that has gone into receivership. The only indicator regarding the whiskey part of that business is that the Eternal Voyage has been planned as a follow up for a long time. Since it hasn't appeared, I guess there is still some Maiden Voyage to be sold.
Whether the whiskey component was washing its face or not, it must be at risk now the whole shebang is in the hands of a bank.
The island of Inishturkbeg is in receivership, which just covers the hospitality business. The brand business, of which whiskey is the principal part, has always been run independently and is not in receivership. Plans continue for the development of whiskey, branded Inish Turk Beg (and Eternal Voyage is the follow up to Maiden Voyage as a product) and other iterations from Clew Bay, more generally.
Thank you for the info, moekelz. I have updated the post above accordingly.
If there are any new whiskey expressions from Clew Bay, please do drop me a line so I can announce them here.
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