I show you how to make a whisky Irish coffee and s’mores. Open fire is optional!
Viewing entries tagged
Irish Whiskey
Waterford Organic Gaia 1.1 - 50% abv - harvest 2015/bottled 2020
Age: 3 years, 9 months
Disclaimer before we start: This is going to be a roller coaster of a whiskey review…
I’ve been following (and a fan of) this distillery since it opened and have tried some of their spirits at the distillery, lucky me right? Their new make has a very farm like quality and is fairly delicious even without maturation. This is the first time I’ve had one of their bottles as a finished product in front of me. A very strange moment because I can attach a face and personality belonging to the main characters involved in the distillery including those who directly brewed and distilled the spirit. Very satisfying to see their hard work come together.
The bottle: I love how it looks and feels. I’m sure it’s supposed to divide and provoke. The distillery’s attitude to whiskey is that of a wine maker: Fantastic raw ingredients, terroir driven, overlaid with a healthy dose of transparency. The bottle and its contents should be enjoyed like you would a wine, it should be shared and probably be served as part of a meal. Maybe before, maybe after or even during. Let’s be honest here, based on looks alone it sits well as part of a good table setting. The bottle’s blue glass adds a lot of drama and a wow factor as far as I’m concerned.
I mentioned a roller coaster and here comes the first dip: we tried to open the bottle, it has a glass stopper borrowed from the wine industry. Too smooth, too small, very very tight fit, impossible to get open. Do I twist, do I pull? This isn’t just me be being an idiot by the way, I had five other monkeys try to open this bottle too. I say monkeys because that’s what we all felt like. Eventually you get it open and whiskey flies out all over the place. See the video at the top. You shake your head and think why?
I have an idea though and I’m not sure if it’s by design or accident but in the end I really like it! Let me paint you a picture:
You’re sitting at a table eating with friends or family, the mood is good, so is the food the wine is flowing. It’s relaxed, it’s fun. Then comes the whiskey. Traditionally this often makes the mood more serious. “Oh this is rare? Let’s put it on a pedestal, we’re fancy people” Bullshit, whiskey is for drinking and sharing!
Serious mood? With the Waterford bottle and its sticky top this isn’t possible cause whiskey comes flying out any sense of reverence or church like silence disappears.
I LOVE IT!
Within seconds you know this is for consuming, for enjoying - don’t hold back on your guests! Fill their glasses! Raise the roof! If the mood is right this uncorking is really fun! We all got a good bit of mileage from the sticky cork and liquid flying out of a whiskey bottle. At the end of the day I’m willing to loose a glass or two to the floor/table top/friend’s shirt etc as part of a good evening!
Would ya come on Gearóid and tell us what’s the whiskey like???
Well after you’ve splashed your friends and get to pouring a glass you find out that the bottle drips when you poor it too! Ha, I knew it would! This all means that even before you’ve nosed your glass you’ve already interacted and smelled the whiskey. It’s in the air on your hands and so on. It smells great. It’s young, like the distillery. Grain heavy, new make heavy but absolutely no aggressive alcohol which considering it’s 50% abv that’s fairly impressive. The barley aromas are amazing! It’s a grain first product more than a whiskey. Fruit. Herbs. Wood. Sweet wine barrels. Soil and farms. The smell of this whiskey on your hands is fascinating because it’s like being in a barley silo with all the additional fruitiness that the yeast, brewing and distillation bring to the table.
In the glass it’s wood forward, which again considering how long it’s been in the barrels shows me the quality of wood and cooperage being used here. The colour is beautiful. It looks like the barley that it came from, golden.
Moving on to the flavour and the next part of the whiskey coaster: At first I was disappointed. After all that drama with the bottle the flavour was just ok. BUT this is my problem. It’s not “just ok”, the whiskey is great. I had been waiting and building this up in my mind for so long that anything they delivered would have disappointed me.
The finish is fantastic whether you have high expectations or not. Long, warm and intense nothing like you’d expect from a young whiskey.
Later that day I tried the whiskey again to get a better idea of the flavour. It’s great. Simple as that, my bad. It’s a fantastic whiskey. The new make is very present and allows you to experience the flavour that the organic barley has to offer when it’s given time to shine. It’s exceptionally smooth and the alcohol is so well bound that I barely noticed how high the abv is. It tastes like grain, pepper, cloves, oak and pears. Very Irish flavours.
The finish is long, dry and warm and reminds me of a spiced, stewed pear I had in Morocco a long time ago. Amazing how flavour and aromas can transport you through time and space. A very Irish countryside nose finishing in a dessert that I ate in the desert 10 years ago. Hope I got the number of sssss’s right there…
So I mentioned terroir. Every bottle should be like a bottle of wine with an individual farmer and vintage right? Except there are multiple farms on the label. So this is a cuvée, a winey way of telling you it’s a blend. Multiple farms? So why the whole terroir thing I asked myself. It looks like the grain was mixed before mashing, distillation, maturation and bottling. So it’s neither a blend or a cuvée and instead a snapshot of organic Irish barley that was harvested in 2015. Nice. Quick side note: Waterford are the first modern distillery to release a certified organic whiskey.
As some of you know if you’ve been to one of my events I champion food and whiskey together. I had the idea that this would match to a traditional Irish beef stew so I tried it out and yep it’s fantastic. I’ve attached my recipe in case you want to try for yourself.
I’ve never had so many mixed reactions to an Irish Whiskey. I feel like it took me on a journey and as with all journeys there are parts you enjoy and parts that are frustrating. At the end of my trip I can sit here and safely say I really enjoyed it. While writing this and collecting my thoughts I poured myself another glass and got to relive my journey and the time I spent with the friends I got to share some of it with. Waterford Organic Gaia 1.1. What a ride, the Irish reading this will hopefully get the double entendre.
Well done Waterford, a great whiskey and thanks to Kirsch Import for sending me the bottle.
Nose: Herbs, barley, grain, almonds, oak, white vermouth, preserved lemons, mint, caramel, salt, earth, spices and maybe honey?
Palate: Oily but smooth. Barley, pepper, cloves, oak and pears.
Finish: Long, exciting, dry, warm and reminds me of spiced & stewed pears.
The photo above was taken in Hamburg at a bar called Standard. They need your support at the moment (as do most bars) so drop by their page and have a look: https://standard.hamburg/
Thanks to Amy, Max and Ole for helping with this post.
Recently I got the chance, on a fairly cold day, to visit the New Midleton Distillery in Midleton, Co Cork, Ireland. This is a very big facility and happens to be home to a few of the cornerstones of Irish Whiskey: Jameson, Powers, Paddy, Redbreast, Midleton Very Rare, Green Spot & Yellow Spot and of course a lot of contract distilling including names like Tullamore Dew and many more.
Now when you visit there are a few different kinds of tour you can take part in. All well and good, in fact a few years ago I did the historical tour which if you’re a random tourist who’s semi-interested in whiskey there are worse ways to spend your afternoon.
If however you love whiskey and already have a bit of experience as to how whiskey is made then you should go with the “Behind the Scenes Tour” or the “Distiller’s Apprentice Tour” these are the ones that take you behind the scenes and into the main production and storage warehouses.
I was invited there by Jameson and we were taken around by John Madden who honestly was a fantastic guide with a very in-depth knowledge of how the place runs and who’s who in the Irish whiskey world. We started off having a look at the historical distillery which like I say is interesting but more in a tourist attraction kind of way. Then we were quickly at the Method and Madness craft distillery where all of the new experimental liquid is coming from. If you look closely you’ll also see the original gin still from when the original distillery first opened.
Then we went on to the main part of the show: the first stop was the Irish Whiskey Academy. We got a much more in-depth look at modern whiskey production and got to try different kinds of new make, from different grains and of course in different strengths. All very polished and very interesting.
After around 30 minutes and a quick tasting of the Black Barrel and Green Spot we headed on to the main distillery. Wow this is a one off in Ireland just because of shear scale and technical prowess. Sadly no pictures of the still room but you’ll know that from visiting other distilleries, they’re never too hot on having the heart of the production photographed. At the moment they’re very close to full production and are making a staggering 150,000 standard barrels per annum! …. and this brings us onto the next part of the tour. The barrel warehouses. 42 of them in total and full to the brim with beautiful whiskey. I’ve added a few photos and a video but honestly, seeing it live gives you the real idea of the scale. The thing that hit me wasn’t just the scale but the distance. We drove past warehouse after warehouse after warehouse and were told about the expansion plans for the coming years, all that whiskey that’s being produced day and night has to be matured somewhere. I did mention that I have a bit of space going in my basement in case they get stuck, let’s see…
The highlight came next though: a grand bit of cask opening. I was treated to a fully matured 16 year old ex-bourbon single pot still which was great but then the trump card was packed out: a 21 year old ex-port pipe. I could try describing it but any tasting notes I’d write wouldn’t do it justice because with all whiskey the atmosphere plays a huge role and with that our tour slowly came to an end.
Thanks again to my guide John Madden, Adam at the distillery and my Pernod Ricard representative in Hamburg, Raffael Koch.
I've just come back from Ireland and we had amazing weather... for a change. We also got to visit a very special distillery: Waterford Distillery. This is high-tech, state of the art stuff with two beautiful stills from Islay at the heart of it. Very impressive. Haven't heard of it yet? I bet you've heard of Mark Reynier the former head of Bruichladdich though. You mightn't know them as they haven't released any whiskey to date but flippin hell have they been busy and trust me you will know them very soon. First off, the guys we met there were brilliant, so a big cheers to Eamonn and Padraig for taking such care and time out of their day for us. I don't really know how to start explaining what this distillery is up to because they are doing so much and are more or less resetting the Irish Whisky industry or maybe even bringing it back to its roots. We've all heard of the Irish Whiskey Renaissance but I think this might be the start of the Irish Whiskey Revolution (I know, it's a pity they're not from Cork, but nobody's perfect). Another thing you might not know are the names of Irish barley farmers but you will in a few years, believe me. While we were there we got to try 3 kinds of new make from three different farms and I can safely say it's the first time I've seen an example of terroir or micro climate in Irish whiskey. One of them was being distilled while we were there. All three tasted completely different. Completely different. They ranged from super farmyard tasting to almost being a whisky as we know it but without any maturation. There has been talk going around recently about introducing a new kind of un-aged whiskey category for Ireland, one where there is no minimum time in the barrel. When I first heard it I was sceptical. Then I tried the new make in Waterford: It's already good, very good in fact - imagine what a little time in a decent barrel would do? I tried something there that even 12 months in a good barrel would transform into something fabulous! Imagine if it were possible to already buy this, rather than waiting the arbitrary 3 years? Well that's just my 2 cents and I'm definitely not saying that Waterford are the ones trying to introduce this system, I'm just super excited to try the final product. If even 1 % of the attention to detail I saw makes it to the first bottling we're all in for a good show. One thing I can tell you is this: These guys know what they're doing, so form an orderly line and get ready for something special.
Gearóid
PS I'll be one of the first in that line by the way.
PPS: It's founded on the site of a historic brewery so we got to see that too! My dad came along too, I'm sure you can guess from the photos who he is.
