WHAT'S IN A NAME?

 WHISKEY VS WHISKY II

The Irish were known to have produced uisce beatha in the 12^th century. It is believed that Irish monks brought the technique of distilling perfumes back to Ireland from their travels to southern Europe around 1,000 AD. The Irish then modified this technique to obtain a drinkable spirituous potion. Irish monks were qualified distillers of the generic Aqua Vitae.

The first written records of aqua vitae in Ireland date back to 1324 and come from a medieval manuscript called the red book of Ossory written by the Bishop of Ossory, Richard Ledred, which shows Uisce Beatha being produced for consumption. More exceptionally, it contains a lengthy medical treatise on aqua vitae. The reasons for its inclusion in the register were more medicinal, perhaps in some way linked to the Black Death that ravaged Kilkenny in 1348 and which was supposed to have been exported by travellers from England. Nevertheless it does provide the earliest known recipe for distillation known to exist in any Irish manuscript and its content of is particular contemporary interest to Ireland’s whiskey industry.

England also suffered a series of the 'Black Death' plagues, starting 1348, having arrived by sea from its province of Gascony, part of south-eastern France, which country had been hit by itinerants along the trade routes across Europe from Asia. The disease ravaged England intermittently up to 1362 and every fifty years thereafter. The Irish monks went across to help and carried the art of distillation across the sea.

The next documented record of whiskey in Ireland was in 1405; The Annals of Clonmacnoise record an annotation that the head of a clan died after "taking a surfeit of aqua vitae" at Christmas. By 1556, whiskey was widespread, as an Act passed by the English Parliament declared whiskey to be "a drink nothing profitable to be drunken daily and used, is now universally throughout this realm made". Both spellings of whisky were used freely; it was by convention or prevailing practice, not law.

In 1608, King James I granted a licence to Sir Thomas Phillips, a landowner in County Antrim. He established the Old Bushmills Distillery. This distillery lays claim to being the oldest surviving grant of licence to distill in the world. In 1779, an Act was introduced by London, taxing distilleries on monthly output based on pure theory. It was assumed that a 500-gallon pot still would produce 33,075 gallons a month without exception. At that time, there were 1,228 registered distilleries in Ireland; however, by 1790, this number had fallen to 246, and by 1821, there were just 32 licensed distilleries in operation. This had the effect of concentrating licit distillation in a smaller number of distilleries based mainly in the larger urban centres, such as Cork and Dublin, which offered better markets for legal producers. Their liquor was called Parliament whiskey.

In the rural areas distillation became a more illicit activity, in particular in the northwest of Ireland where agricultural lands were poorer and poitín (illicit spirit) provided a supplemental source of income to the tenant farmers, an income which landlords were again slow to curtail as it would have weakened their abilities to pay rent. The scale of this illicit activity was such that one surveyor estimated that duty was paid on only 2% of the spirit consumed in the northwestern provinces of Ulster and Connaught, while Aeneas Coffey (an excise officer at the time, and later inventor of the Coffey Still) estimated that there were over 800 illicit stills in operation in Inishowen, County Donegal alone. By contrast, illicit distillation in Munster and Leinster was less extensive.

In the early 1800s, Ireland was at the forefront of whiskey production, supplying 60% of the world’s supply. As production methods and techniques evolved, and with the increased availability of steam power, larger and bigger pot stills became the norm, with the number of distilleries in Ireland growing from 40 in 1823, to 86 in 1840. Ireland was the largest spirit market in the United Kingdom, with demand for spirit exceeding that of more populous England and Scotland. Therefore, as capacities expanded, Ireland became the largest producer of spirits in the United Kingdom; and Dublin, then the largest market for spirits in Ireland, emerged as a major distilling centre. By 1823, Dublin boasted the five largest licensed distilleries in the country. At their peak, the distilleries in Dublin would grow to become the largest in the world, with a combined output of almost 10 million gallons per annum, the largest of which, Roe's Thomas Street Distillery, had an output exceeding 2 million gallons per annum, more than the total volume of whiskey produced in all of Speyside. By 1878, the reputation of Dublin whiskey was such that Distillers Company Ltd., a Scottish distilling firm, having built a distillery in Dublin, claimed that Dublin whiskey could sell for a 25% premium over other Irish whiskies, and that it had a demand five times that of Scotch at the time. Although these figures are probably inflated, they give an indication of the esteem in which Dublin whiskey was held, even by Scottish distillers. 

Roe's Thomas Street Distillery

During this period, the four largest Dublin distillingfirms, of John Jameson, William Jameson, John Powers and George Roe (all family-run, and collectively known as the ‘Big Four’) came to dominate the Irish distilling landscape. The chief output of these distilleries, known as single or ‘pure pot still’ whiskey, was made from a mix of malted and unmalted barley, and solely distilled in pot stills. The style, having initially emerged as a means of avoiding a 1785 tax on malt, endured although the tax had been later repealed. In fact, even by the late 1880s, only two of Ireland's then 28 existing distilleries were producing single malt whiskey, the rest steadfast in their devotion to ‘pure pot still’.

The main turning points was the patenting in 1832 of the Coffey still by Aeneas Coffey. The Coffey still, was a continuous distillation apparatus which offered an improvement on the traditional pot still. Although similar continuous stills had been proposed in the past, including by other Irish distillers themselves, the Coffey still was the most effective, and soon entered widespread use. Coffey stills removed some of the volatile components responsible for flavour and were used for distilling grain whisky virtually non-stop, with massive output capacity.

The adoption of the Coffey still in Scotland was indirectly assisted by Ireland's Great Famine of the 1840s, which led to the repealing of the Corn Laws, which between 1815 and 1846 had restricted the import of cheaper foreign grain into Britain and Ireland. After the laws were repealed in 1846, cheap American corn could be imported and used to produce neutral spirit at 94.8% ABV in Coffey stills. When distilled for drinking, the taste would depend on the mash bill used to distill the spirit and sold as grain whiskey.

Most of the high-strength spirit would find its way in industrial and medical use. Grain spirit, though weak in taste, could also be aimed at blending with traditional pot still derived spirit to produce a cheaper "blended whiskey". This blended whiskey, which was less intense in taste than pure pot still, was to prove popular in Britain, capturing much market share from Irish pure pot still whiskey. Such blending was finally permitted in bond under The Scotch Whisky Act of 1860 as amended in 1863.

Despite changing tastes and falling market share, the adoption of Coffey stills was stubbornly resisted by Irish distillers for many years, with some arguing for restrictions on their use. For instance, in 1878, the big Dublin distillers jointly published a pamphlet entitled Truths about Whisky, in which they referred to the output of Coffey stills as "Good, bad or indifferent; but it cannot be whiskey, and it ought not to be sold under that name". In 1904, almost seventy years after the Coffey still had been patented, the Senior Manager of Ireland's largest rural distillery, Allman's of Bandon, placed an outright ban on the introduction of Coffey stills at his distillery, in the face of opposition from a director.

In the period when Irish whiskey was at its zenith, it would have been difficult to imagine that Scotch, then produced by small-scale producers and almost unheard of outside of Scotland, would soon become the world's preeminent drink, while Irish whiskey, then the world's most popular whiskey, would enter a century of decline, culminating with all of Dublin's great distilleries shutting their doors. That said, the Scots were by far the most aggressive salesmen, with a ready market in English Colonies overseas.

Irish whiskey has a smoother finish as opposed to the smoky, earthy overtones common to Scotch whisky, which come largely from drying the malted barley using peat smoke. Peat is rarely used in the malting process outside of Scotland. There are notable exceptions to these rules in both countries. Examples include Connemara peated Irish malt whiskey from the Cooley Distillery in Cooley, County Louth; Pearse Whiskey from Pearse Lyons Distillery in Dublin; and Dunville's peated from Echlinville Distillery.

The Big Four, proud of their existing produce, scoffed at the use of the Coffey still, repeatedly questioning if its product, grain whiskey, which they termed neutral or silent (i.e. tasteless) spirit, could even be termed whiskey. Their distilleries were among the most advanced in the world. The distillers were simply steadfast in the belief that their existing methods yielded a superior whiskey. For instance, John Jameson carried out a trial of a Coffey still at his distillery, but chose to not adopt the technology because he was not satisfied with the quality of product it produced. Therefore, in the face of opposition in Ireland, Coffey offered his still to the English gin and Scottish whiskey distillers, who proved more receptive, and where the technology gained widespread use.

The Big Four demanded that their spirit be called whiskey and the shoddy diluted blended whisky of Scotland be called whisky. When they saw the impending decline of their output’s sales in the face of rapidly increasing popularity of Scotch whisky, they changed their demand and asked that their spirits be called whisky and that the other spirits similar in nature be termed whiskey. A Royal Commission was set up in 1908 to decide the issue, among others. Over three years, this Commission found no cause for concern, given the drop in sales of Irish the product and permitted the Scots to call their products either whisky or whiskey as they chose and the Irish could then use the other. The Irish then got their original demand accepted, but not without rancour. It was only in 1960 that the Irish adopted the term whiskey.

The Old Midleton Distillery in which the Jameson Experience is located began life as a woollen mill in Midleton, County Cork, Ireland, set over 15 acres before being converted to a military barracks and subsequently a distillery in 1825 by Murphy Brothers. The Murphys invested a considerable sum in establishing a large distillery, which was to become known as James Murphy and Company. A large undershot timber water wheel was installed to help power the distillery (which was replaced in 1852, by an iron water wheel which survives on-site to this day. In addition, a mammoth 31,618 gallon pot still was constructed at the distillery which remains the largest ever built. The pot still was so large, that it needed to be assembled on-site with the distillery built around it. The distillery operated until 1975, when a new distillery was constructed alongside it to house the consolidated operations of three former whiskey-making rivals, John Jameson & Son, John Powers & Son, and Cork Distilleries Company (owners of the Midlelton Distillery), who had come together to form Irish Distillers in 1966.

THE MIDLETON POTSTILL

Difference From Scotch Whisky:

(i) Irish whiskey is made from grains, water, and yeast.  The key grains are barley (malted and unmalted) and corn. The use of unmalted barley is one of the main differences between Irish whiskey and Scotch production.  Unmalted barley contributes a nutty and oily characteristics, and is used only in the production of Irish Pot Still Whiskey. Peat was not used in the kilning process, though a few current day whiskeys do use a small portion of peat.

(ii) Whiskey produced by batch distillation can be either double or triple distilled. Double distillation in similar to the process used to produce Scotch whisky. Triple pot distillation is closely associated with Ireland although it’s not a legal requirement.  The extra distillation produces a more rectified and hence a lighter style of spirit.  Distillers usually adopt other methods such as the use of multiple mash bills, and different cuts (heads and tails) to create a variety of styles.

(iii) For distilleries like Roe & Co  where triple distillation is carried out, the (low wines) from the wash still (Vision) are transferred onto a second still sometimes known as the intermediate still or feints still (Virtue). The still is heated and as in the wash still, the vapours start to rise, but this time, as the vapours are condensed back into a liquid, the distiller will separate or cut the liquid into 3 parts. The first of these is known as the heads, this liquid is collected and will be redistilled on the next run. The next portion is known as the heart or centre cut and this will be the liquid that will go onto the spirit still. Finally, the third cut is the tails, also to be redistilled on the next run.  Spirit still (Valour) distillation is much the same as the intermediate still distillation where the liquid is broken into three portions or cuts, heads/fore shots, heart/centre and the tails. The heart section is the portion that will make whiskey, the liquid is known as new make spirit and has an ABV of approximately 80-86%. Before being filled into casks, the strength of this liquid is reduced to approximately 63.5%.

Types of Irish Whiskey

There are four different varieties of Irish whiskey:

(i) Pot Still Irish Whiskey

A combination of unpeated malted barley (min. 30%) and unmalted barley (min. 30%) with other unmalted cereals (e.g. corn) distilled in pot stills twice or three times.

(ii) Irish Malt Whiskey

Produced using 100% malted barley and distilled in pot stills twice or three times.

(iii) Irish Grain Whiskey

Produced from malted barley (max. 30%), unmalted barley and other unmalted cereals including corn and wheat; distilled in column stills.

(iv) Blended Irish Whiskey

Blend of two or more different whiskey types in any combination (Irish Pot Whiskey, Irish Malt Whiskey or Irish Grain Whiskey).