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Favorite Irish whiskey?


Rng1974
This topic has been inactive for at least 365 days, and is now closed. Please feel free to start a new thread on the subject! 

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Yikes - we must make amends.  Redbreast 12 yr.  Teelings Single Grain.  Tyrconnell, any vintage.  Those are my favs. 

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Redbreast 12 yr, Redbreast 12 Cask Strength, Powers John's Lane, Tullamore Dew Phoenix, Bushmills 16 and 21, Green Spot/Yellow Spot.  There are also some decent single malt Irish whiskeys around like Knappogue Castle 12, Teeling Single Malt, Irishman Single Malt, etc.  I am giving you some middle-higher road suggestions, as I started with the lower-end stuff, basic blends, such as Bushmills and Jameson, and they are honestly nothing I would go back to.  Bourbon and scotch are simply much more interesting to me.  But the better Irish whiskeys can be interesting and solid in their own right.

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Red Breast 12 Cask Strength, followed closely by Red Breast anything! It is next to impossible for me to pick favorites with any category of spirits. Not so with Irish.

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I'll add that, if you just want a taste of what Irish is all about, even a cheap pour of a Jameson blend will be representative and do the job.

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4 hours ago, Kane said:

I'll add that, if you just want a taste of what Irish is all about, even a cheap pour of a Jameson blend will be representative and do the job.

I would have to respectfully disagree. At the very least I would encourage anyone to try more than one brand and/or style before making a decision on a particular category of whiskey. That would be a bit like basing your opinion of scotch on a taste of Johnny Walker Red Label!

 

Also useful to keep in mind that for the moment you are still getting most of the Irish whiskey sold these days from basically three distilleries although the types of whiskey made, especially at Cooley and Midleton, are pretty diverse. Despite coming from the same distillery there is a lot of difference between the basic Jameson blended whiskey and Redbreast 12 cask strength or Powers Johns Lane (both of which are lovely whiskey!) for example.

 

Not sure if any of the Kilbeggan whiskey is now coming out of the Kilbeggan distillery by now (it is a relatively small pot still based distillery as I recall but it has now been reopended for about 10 years) but most of the Beam-Suntory whiskey is still coming out of the much bigger Cooley distillery.

 

Maybe West Cork is releasing their own whiskey these days as well? I haven't done a good job of keeping track!

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3 hours ago, tanstaafl2 said:

[snip]

Well, yeah, I agree with the general sentiment, and Jameson is not *that* representative as to make the entire category redundant :) But I do think that the basic Jameson is quality stuff, and tastes like a middle of the road Irish whiskey. So it will deliver on the Irish whiskey experience. JW Red, on the other hand, should be killed with fire.

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So this is a loaded question since everyone here is a bourbon connesiure, but what's the taste difference in Irish vs Bourbon? I've read that it's lighter but I'm not sure what that means. Does it burn more or have an off taste or after taste? I ask these questions because I don't want to buy rot gut and also don't want to plop down $40 for something I'm not gonna enjoy. 

I fully trust all the great suggestions on here and they all seem locally available except the Teelings and John Powers.

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1 hour ago, Rng1974 said:

I fully trust all the great suggestions on here and they all seem locally available except the Teelings and John Powers.

Pretty much everybody suggested Redbreast anyway :)

 

1 hour ago, Rng1974 said:

what's the taste difference in Irish vs Bourbon?

I wouldn't know how to answer that. They are different spirits made from (almost) entirely different grains. They are simply different, I don't think you need to compare or contrast them. Why not buy a pour somewhere and see for yourself? Red Breast 12 is widely available even in dive bars these days. It's fun to explore!

 

1 hour ago, Rng1974 said:

I've read that it's lighter but I'm not sure what that means. Does it burn more or have an off taste or after taste?

Frankly, it doesn't mean anything. It can be as flavorful and rich in texture as any Scotch or bourbon or whatever. In my experience, people who call Irish whiskey light usually think of a heavily-peated Scotch as the blueprint of whisky. Compared to something like that, Irish whiskeys could be less offensive and easier to get into for a beginner, hence the word "light".

Edited by Kane
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19 hours ago, Rng1974 said:

So this is a loaded question since everyone here is a bourbon connesiure, but what's the taste difference in Irish vs Bourbon? I've read that it's lighter but I'm not sure what that means. Does it burn more or have an off taste or after taste? I ask these questions because I don't want to buy rot gut and also don't want to plop down $40 for something I'm not gonna enjoy. 

I fully trust all the great suggestions on here and they all seem locally available except the Teelings and John Powers.

The comments on this thread, like Kane's just above mine, are worth reading a couple times.  I knew next to nothing about "Irish" whiskey but knew I did not (and do not) care for Bushmills basic.  I also assumed "light" meant "not peaty/smokey like an expensive single malt Scotch" which I also didn't really care for.  OR, it could mean the color as Irish tends to be yellowish while bourbon and other American whiskies tend to brown.  After reading LOTS of world whisky/whiskey books and years of occasional comparison tastings, I found ONE Irish distillery whose products I liked top to bottom.  It's name was Cooley.  THEN, Beam bought it.  THE GOOD NEWS - In addition to some SBers who post on the Irish whiskey threads here, a new member, known as CharlieMcGuffin, joined on August 6th.  Go over to the "New to Straightbourbon" topic and look for Charlie's "Hello from Ireland" thread.  He sums up in a few paragraphs what it took me years of drinking to figure out.  You will also note that suggestions appearing on this thread also appear on that thread.  When two threads agree, the info must be good.B)  EDIT - Oh, yeah, some SBers over the years have pointed me to some blended scotches, AKA "lowland" scotches, and even some single malts and Highland blends that I LOVE.  Just keep trying stuff and figure out what YOU like.

 

Edited by Harry in WashDC
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On ‎8‎/‎26‎/‎2017 at 5:39 PM, Harry in WashDC said:

 EDIT - Oh, yeah, some SBers over the years have pointed me to some blended scotches, AKA "lowland" scotches, and even some single malts and Highland blends that I LOVE.  Just keep trying stuff and figure out what YOU like.

 

Not to be overly pedantic (I like to be only a little bit pedantic! :D ) but "lowland" scotch is not  are not quite the same as "blended" scotch. Lowland is a (somewhat) arbitrary geographic and production style distinction. A lowland single malt scotch is still a single barley malt from a pot still like Highland or Islay single malt but generally comes from the southern part of Scotland and is typically triple pot distilled rather than double pot distilled as most single malt scotch is. This tends to create a "lighter" style of whisky (however one would like to define that!) and in that sense is more similarly to the traditional style of single malt Irish whiskey which is also triple distilled on a pot still. Today that is probably mostly Bushmills at he moment as I don't think Midleton makes a lot (or any?) single malt currently. The upstart new kid on the block, Cooley, is an exception as most, if not all, of its single malt whiskey is double distilled rather than triple distilled.

 

"Blended scotch" implies a blend of both pot distilled single malt and column distilled grain whisky. But you can also have "blended malt scotch" or "blended grain scotch" which is all malt or all grain but is a blend of whiskies from different distilleries. Compass Box does excellent examples of both blended malt and blended grain whisky (as well as the more traditional blended scotch).

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2 hours ago, tanstaafl2 said:

Not to be overly pedantic (I like to be only a little bit pedantic! :D ) but . . .

 

You can be as pedantic as you want whenever I post.B)  As you could (or should be able to) tell from my post, I know not a whole lot about scotch and was mostly making it up as I went along - well, not entirely making it up because I was trying to describe some things I had tasted and liked but wasn't precise.  In other words, thank you for helping me get my nomenclature straight.  Frankly, you also helped me understand why I like some whiskies but not others.  Maybe I'll be able to drop trial and error . . .:P

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6 hours ago, tanstaafl2 said:

Not to be overly pedantic (I like to be only a little bit pedantic! :D ) but "lowland" scotch is not  are not quite the same as "blended" scotch. Lowland is a (somewhat) arbitrary geographic and production style distinction. A lowland single malt scotch is still a single barley malt from a pot still like Highland or Islay single malt but generally comes from the southern part of Scotland and is typically triple pot distilled rather than double pot distilled as most single malt scotch is. This tends to create a "lighter" style of whisky (however one would like to define that!) and in that sense is more similarly to the traditional style of single malt Irish whiskey which is also triple distilled on a pot still. Today that is probably mostly Bushmills at he moment as I don't think Midleton makes a lot (or any?) single malt currently. The upstart new kid on the block, Cooley, is an exception as most, if not all, of its single malt whiskey is double distilled rather than triple distilled.

 

"Blended scotch" implies a blend of both pot distilled single malt and column distilled grain whisky. But you can also have "blended malt scotch" or "blended grain scotch" which is all malt or all grain but is a blend of whiskies from different distilleries. Compass Box does excellent examples of both blended malt and blended grain whisky (as well as the more traditional blended scotch).

Isn't a lot of lowland scotch also unpeated? I hate peat so that is a pretty distinct attribute

Edited by bourbon4all
mistype
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1 hour ago, bourbon4all said:

Isn't a lot of lowland scotch also unpeated? I hate peat so that is a pretty distinct attribute

Yes but so are most Speysides and plenty of the Highland Malts, triple distillation is definitely more of the differentiator of Lowland scotches since it's basically unique to the region.  I'm not particularly well versed in Irish whiskey but the Lowland malts certainly seem to have the most in common with the typical Irish profile most people think of, however these days Irish Whiskey is getting pretty varied. 

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Redbreast 12 CS (Redbreast 12 is great too) my favorite pot still whiskey, Tullamore Dew my favorite Irish blend.

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13 hours ago, bourbon4all said:

Isn't a lot of lowland scotch also unpeated? I hate peat so that is a pretty distinct attribute

 

11 hours ago, kevinbrink said:

Yes but so are most Speysides and plenty of the Highland Malts, triple distillation is definitely more of the differentiator of Lowland scotches since it's basically unique to the region.  I'm not particularly well versed in Irish whiskey but the Lowland malts certainly seem to have the most in common with the typical Irish profile most people think of, however these days Irish Whiskey is getting pretty varied. 

 

Indeed, it is pretty rare for a Lowland whisky to have peat. Bladnoch released a "lightly" peated version some time back as I recall but I don't remember it being particularly noteworthy. The relatively new Ailsa Bay distillery owned by William Grant  is also a Lowland distillery and reportedly they make a fairly heavily peated whisky (which I have never tried)  although from what I have read a lot of what they make ends up in blends made by William Grant. Only recently (as it is now about 10 years old) has an official bottling been released and I don't think it has peat. It is located close to Girvan, a large grain whisky distillery, and Ladyburn which was a noteworthy but short lived and now long closed Lowland malt distillery. Those are/were both William Grant distilleries as well.

 

Triple distillation, while very distinct to Lowland whiskies, is done in at least one other place I can think of. Springbank triple distills the Hazelburn line. Of course Springbank is pretty "low" in that it is well south of the boundary for lowland distilleries. Not to mention elevation since it practically sits in a little bay on the Firth of Clyde.

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