I used to be prejudiced against Irish whiskey. In my defence, I’m not the only one. A few years ago, I read the diary of Scottish folk musician James Yorkston (he published it, I didn’t sneak into his room and read it). He refused to drink Irish whiskey and insisted on a bottle of Scotch on his rider. I probably nodded along in agreement at the time. Weren’t all Irish whiskies just made in a big factory in Cork?
Things were very different in the 19th century. Such was Irish whiskey’s reputation that some unscrupulous distillers would ship Scotch to Ireland to mature briefly, where it legally became Irish and could be sold for more money. Dublin was the distillery capital of the world and the Irish business dwarfed their rivals over the sea. In 1887, the city’s four biggest distilleries put out a combined total of 11 million litres. From this peak, gradually at first and then all of a sudden, the industry began to decline.
Some of that can be put down to the rise of blended Scotch. The ingenuity the Scottish put into marketing and selling their product left the Irish standing. But what really destroyed the Irish industry was Prohibition in the US. The Irish refused to supply the illicit trade, while the Scots cleaned up. At home, a war of independence against the British Empire was followed by short, vicious civil war in 1922. Ireland’s woes were compounded by De Valera’s policies in the 1930s, which sought to make Ireland self-sufficient. Ireland was cut off from the Empire’s market. By 1975, the last of the Irish brands, including Jameson, Paddy and Powers, all moved to the New Midleton distillery in Cork. Now tThere was only one distillery left.
The renaissance began with the opening of the Cooley Distillery in 1987, which revived one of the great brands, Tyrconnell. In 2014, another grand old name, Tullamore Dew, opened a new distillery at its original home in County Offaly. They make an extremely good 15-year-old blend, called Trilogy. It’s the sort of thing I’d entertain high-powered Indian businessmen with. Of course, as the new distillery opened only last year, Trilogy is blended from whiskies produced at that unlovely Cork facility. It might not have the romance of those rainswept distilleries in Scotland, but even in the doldrums, the Irish were producing some fine whiskies. Turns out that folk singer and I really did know nothing. He had some nice tunes though.
Henry Jeffreys’ first book, Empire of Booze, will be published by Unbound in 2016. @henrygjeffreys
