Bushmills Irish Honey now in Ireland

I posted about Bushmills Irish Honey last March, when it was launched in the US. In late August it finally surfaced in Ireland, at least in Dublin airport, where I spotted it.

To be fair to Bushmills, I must declare that I don't like the taste of honey. I got a sample of it in the airport shop in a little cup, though, and didn't pick up so much on the honey. I was more struck by a hit of vanilla which might be one of the "other natural flavours" they coyly allude to on the label. Anyway, I thought it was safe enough to invest in a litre bottle (€28) for later exploration.

Pouring it into a big glass, I realised that they hadn't stinted on the honey after all. It's big on the nose and the palate, which I found hard going initially. I'm revisiting it tonight though, and I'm making better headway.

At 35%, and perhaps with a coating effect from the honey, there is no alcohol burn at all, just a gentle warming on the finish. I imagine this was a large part of the rationale for introducing the product, ie that it might snare the non-whiskey drinker.

The honey lingers far too long for me but I find that tossing an ice cube in adjusts the balance nicely. Now I get a different, less honey-like sweetness and it's a lot easier to pick out the pears that the official tasting notes describe. The finish is more HobNob than honey, which I don't mind at all.

I suspect Bushmills Irish Honey will be more often drunk mixed than neat so let's throw in some Coke Zero (all I have to hand) to finish. Oh, very drinkable. It tastes like one of those fancy colas "brewed from botanicals".

We might be seeing the start of a trend in flavoured Irish whiskeys here. Jameson recently launched it's own trial in Australia: Jameson Cloudy Apple and Jameson Raw Cola. I've always thought Irish whiskey mixes well so I'm sure there's a market for these experiments. Try them on whiskey sceptics you know. It might lure them a little closer to the dark side.

Tullamore Dew 12yo Sherry Finish

There is a new Tullamore Dew in the wild. If you want to track it down, it's exclusively in Heinemann airport duty free shops (in Germany, Austria, Norway, Hungary and Slovakia).

Photo from Irish Whiskey Society on Flickr

It's not your typical Tullamore Dew, which is a blend of pot still, malt and grain whiskeys. This is a 12 year old single malt, made at Bushmills distillery. The final 6 months of maturation were spent in second-fill sherry butts in a Tullamore Dew warehouse in Clonmel.

I haven't tried it myself but it turned up at a tasting of 12 year old Irish whiskeys at a recent Irish Whiskey Society meeting. It seems to have polarized the room: a few really liked it, most really didn't.

I like that they are experimenting, at least. I hope they come up with one bottling, no matter how limited, that has a little something special with wide appeal. Just so the brand gets a look in when we are talking about favourite whiskeys. Tullamore Dew is a very successful brand, of course, and I'd happily order one over ice in a pub. But there isn't a great whiskey just for savouring in the line-up. (I'd have adopted the Black 43 as my "house blend" if it hadn't been discontinued).

There is a chance to do something special for a "distillery bottling" that will only be sold at the visitor centre just opened in Tullamore. Perhaps they have already have something interesting maturing in that Clonmel warehouse.

Make room on the shelves

2012 has teased a lot with the promise of new whiskeys but it looks like we actually have a race on our hands now to get spirit into barrels by year end.

Dingle Distillery originally planned to start distilling whiskey this month but that has been pushed back to December. The stills are on site so it's only a matter of time. Meanwhile, we will be able to able to sample their Dingle Organic Gin, which is almost ready to bottle.

Not too far away, the Dingle Brewing Company tells me they have laid their hands on some stills and hope to get them fired up before the end of the year. They already have a name for their whiskey: Shackleton's, which continues the explorer theme they established with their Tom Crean's beer. A gin is a distinct possibility too.

Midleton distillery (home of Jameson) took delivery of three new pot stills in early August, part of their ongoing €100m capacity expansion project.

There are two more stills on the ocean as I write, headed for the Carlow Brewing Company. They are newly-made by Vendome and, if I understood it right, one is a column still and one a pot still. This is a joint venture between the makers of O'Hara's and Alltech, a Kentucky-based brewing and distilling company (among other things).

Alltech already makes malt and bourbon (I tasted their Town Branch Bourbon at an Irish Whiskey Society meeting and liked it) which are going to make their way into the Irish market soon, I believe. They have just launched their Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale in Ireland. This is aged for 6 weeks in freshly-decanted bourbon barrels. I had a sample of it yesterday, alongside the unaged version. The cask adds the nose and body I normally miss when I try beer, being used to the more concentrated flavour of whiskey. I'll revisit it when I find a bottle for sale in Dublin.

As to what style of whiskey this trans-Atlantic venture will make, it seems to be up in the air for now. They will experiment when they get the stills plumbed in.

We are still expecting good things from the Teeling Whiskey Company and the Belfast Distillery Company's plans to open a new distillery in the former Crumlin Road Gaol are said to be progressing nicely.

The Tullamore Dew Visitor Centre reopened this week after a big renovation. Their new distillery in Tullamore remains in the pre-planning application stage but it's still a go.

That should give a flavour of the stories we are looking forward to over the next year. There are some other players I haven't even mentioned so I don't doubt we have a few surprises in store too.