It's been a while since I reviewed anything from Ireland. Or almost anything with the extra "e"! But this example is a great gateway into something different. And it's finished in cognac and brandy casks!
I don't often reach for an Irish whiskey. In fact off the top of my head you'll only find two bottles of Irish whiskey in my house, one of which being Connemara Turf Mor, the heavily peated double-distilled whiskey that is about as far away from a typical Irish whiskey as you can get without leaving Ireland. And the second bottle was a gift! That's not to say that some Irish whiskeys aren't great quality, they just don't generally do it for me - particularly those that are triple distilled, which tends to strip character and flavour while resulting in a lighter and more refined spirit. Even among triple-distilled Scotch whiskies, I only really go for those that have significant distillery character, Springbank's triple-distilled Hazelburn spirit and also Benromach's triple-distilled limited release, for example, release some excellent triple distilled single malts. But I find most examples of Irish whiskey to be too light and/or too sweet for my tastes, with one main exception that comes straight to mind: Teeling. While the majority of easily-accessible Irish whiskeys are bottled at 40% ABV and are chill filtered and artificially coloured, Teeling was one of the first to go against the grain (pun intended) across the board with their full range. From their entry-level 'Small Batch' blend through to the age statement limited releases, all are bottled at 46% and above without chill filtration or added E150a. Which is just the way it should be! Teeling are also a little more adventurous than most Irish producers when it comes to cask finishing, with the likes of rum, madeira, red wine, port, sauternes, PX sherry & stout cask finishes being on offer at various price points across their extensive range of different bottlings. Not to mention cognac and brandy casks, which is where the example that we're looking at today comes in.
Before we get into that though, let's look at Teeling itself. The Teeling Distillery opened in 2015 in Newmarket in the centre of Dublin, with three copper pot stills and an annual capacity of around 500,000 litres of spirit. At the time it was the first new whiskey distillery to open in Dublin in 125 years, while Ireland has gone from having just two whiskey distilleries in the early 1980s to now having over forty, with many more in the planning stages. But the majority of Teeling's whiskeys were not distilled at Teeling Distillery. This family-owned company was actually founded in 2012 by brothers Jack & Stephen Teeling, whose father John had founded Cooley Distillery in 1987. A formerly government-owned potato alcohol plant, Cooley is located an hour's drive north of Dublin, and John Teeling converted it into a whiskey distillery before selling to Jim Beam (now Beam Suntory) in 2011. The sale price included 16,000 casks of maturing whiskey staying with the Teeling family, which they used to found the Teeling Whiskey Company - so the majority of Teeling products, so far, are actually independent bottlings, mostly distilled at Cooley. Cooley's main point of difference is the use of double distillation rather than the triple distillation which is more common in Irish whiskey, and the use of both column stills and pot stills. The single malt whiskeys are produced in the latter, while the blends are generally produced in the former. Brands such as Kilbeggan, Tyrconnel and the aforementioned Connemara are all made at Cooley, as well as a large number of other Irish whiskey brands that are (often undisclosed) independent bottlings. So far there has only been one product released that was actually distilled at the Teeling Distillery in Dublin, a 'Single Pot Still Whiskey', which is a 50/50 mix of malted and unmalted barley that is triple-distilled in pot stills and matured in a combination of virgin oak, ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. Why they've chosen to use triple-distillation I can't say, and I'm yet to try that particular bottling, but it's safe to say that it'll be very different to the double-distilled single malts that the brand has been built on and that have been very successful. I'm sure there'll be single malt whiskeys from Teeling Distillery coming in future, but I'm yet to see or hear anything about their release. Maybe they're already blending some of their own spirit in to the NAS releases? Either way, let's hope that at least some of them are only double distilled!
The Teeling whiskey that we're looking at today is a single malt, double-distilled at Cooley - although you won't find that written or acknowledged anywhere. This bottling is part of the company's Revival series, referring to the revival of Irish whiskey and the Teeling Distillery, and this 12-year old single malt was the fifth and final 'volume' in the series, and also the youngest. All five whiskeys in the series were single malts, all bottled at 46%, with the first being a 15-year old finished in rum casks, the second being a 13-year old finished in Calvados (apple brandy) casks, the third a 14-year old finished in French fortified wine casks, the fourth being a 15-year old finished in sweet Muscat barrels, and finally a cognac & brandy cask finish in this 12-year old fifth 'volume' that was initially released in 2018. Both cognac and brandy are usually distilled from grapes, with the main difference being geographical - cognac can only be made in the Cognac region of France, but it also must be distilled from white wine grapes and aged in French oak for a minimum of two years, while brandy is the general term that applies to any fruit-derived spirit and can be produced anywhere. There were 15,000 bottles released at a reasonable price of around $160 AUD, with the vast majority of the Australian allocation going to one large retailer which still has a small amount of stock in some stores. As mentioned above all Teeling whiskeys are non-chill filtered and naturally coloured. I also have to add that Teeling really know how to package a whiskey - the bottles and outer boxes in this series were all very well done. The sample for this review came from a generous fellow whiskey nerd, who keeps this bottle in his office, although it's lasted him quite a while! Let's get to it.
Single malt, double-distilled at Cooley Distillery, initially matured in ex-bourbon casks, finished in Cognac & Brandy casks. Fifth and final 'volume' in the Revival series. 15,000 bottles released 2018.
Colour: Yellow gold.
Nose: Fresh, malty & floral sweet. Loads of dusty malted barley, bright & sweet lemon and toasted oak with some dried coconut & buttery, nutty caramel. Fresh sweet apple, aniseed and vanilla syrup with a touch of sweet fruit - dried pear and green banana.
Texture: Lovely. Medium weight, quite oily. Sweet & creamy. No heat at all.
Taste: Toasted nutty oak, vanilla, buttery caramel and burnt orange. Touch of dried pear and banana in the background, along with some sweet red apple and dry grassy barley. More caramel & sharp aniseed, black pepper and lemon.
Finish: Medium length. Touch of raw spirit, but not hot or harsh. Quite floral. Then more gristy, dusty barley and more nutty toasted oak. Dried coconut again too. Touch of bitter aniseed, burnt orange and more buttery caramel.
Score: 3.5 out of 5.
Notes: There's plenty of flavour, and plenty of grassy, dry barley on show, but the cask influence is certainly there - the toasted oak, caramel and burnt orange is all very cognac in my book. The cask finish hasn't overwhelmed the grain, spirit and distillery characters though, but each seems to show itself at different times rather than being cohesive. This is a sweet whiskey overall, but with plenty of that oak, grassy barley and citrus helping to calm it down a little. And it's also helped massively by the 46% ABV and double-distillation, if you ask me. This is a young whiskey of course, and I'm guessing it needed a cask finish to give it a little character boost, but it's also more mature than I usually find the Teeling core range which can be a little undercooked. Then again, this 12-year old Revival was almost twice the price of the core range Single Malt expression, so you'd hope that was the case!
Plenty of character and flavour, and a clear but not overwhelming influence from the exotic cask finishing. Not bad at all. Unfortunately it's going to be hard to find at a reasonable price, and personally I wouldn't go hunting for it at secondary prices. But if you're looking for a flavourful Irish whiskey with a little more character than some, Teeling is certainly worth a closer look.
Cheers!
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