Jack Teeling Is Back – Irish Whiskey News
Jack Teeling is back again
Ernie – Ernst J. Scheiner, The Gateway to Distilleries at www.whisky-distilleries.net
His family roots lie in Dublin and go back to 1782. „Jack Teeling, founder of the Teeling Whiskey Co., comes from a family long associated with Irish whiskey. From Walter Teeling…who setup a distillery on Marrowbone Lane in Dublin to John Teeling who founded Cooley Distillery in 1987.“
The Pot Still Phoenix comes back to life: Teeling is „…reviving the Independent Spirit of Ireland.“ Distilling stopped in Dublin in the mid 1970s when the distilleries John Jameson and John Powers were moved to Midleton, Co. Cork. The new “Spirit of Dublin” is a blended whiskey of grain and malt whiskeys from his father’s Cooley distillery now owned by Beam Inc. Cooley distillery lies some 100km north east of Dublin in County of Louth on the Cooley peninsula.
After the release of the intercultural Hybrid, a blended malt of single malts from Bruichladdich (Isle of Islay) and Cooley, a „legal“ Poítin made of grain and malt spirits from Cooley, the Dublin based Teeling Whisky Company created a new whiskey in the Dublin Bonder’s tradition.
The black bottle – actually dark green – with its black and white label resembles the bottlings of the 19th century bonders of the glorious days of whiskey distilling in Dublin and Ireland. The Spirit of Dublin comes back to life. „This will be our premium blend. We want to give current Irish Whiskey consumers a more flavourful, unique, premium product beyond the standard blended whiskey,“ says Alex Chasko of Teeling Whiskey.
The casks were handpicked first fill Bourbon casks with a higher ratio of malts than usual. The blend was married and finished in rum casks sourced by the renowned whisky consultant Dr James -Jim- Swan from the rum distillery Flor de Caña in Nicaragua (http://flordecana.com). The finishing period lasted four months.
Alex Chasko: „There is a small amount of spirit caramel added to standardize the colour. Personally I am not a big fan of its use, but it is needed to insure that we have a consistent product. I think that there needs to be a balance between the expectations of what a consumer wants to see and the quality control needs of a production facility. I think that the small amount that we have used is a good balance for the product.“
The Teeling whiskey is sweet and velvetly, there is also a rather spicy touch along with some maltiness. It is a delicate surprise and will be a premium Irish whiskey on the shelves at the pubs not only in Ireland.
The new Teeling Irish blended whiskey will be a future standard product and is bottled at 46% abv and non-chill filtered: „The idea of the 46% abv and non-chill filtering is to provide more flavour than what is in a standard blended whiskey,“ Jack Teeling explains.
The retail price will be around €30.- and the blend will be available at The Irish Whiskey Collection Shop of Dublin Airport and at the Dublin Celtic Whiskey Shop in Dawson Street.
„We export our products to other markets soon,“ says Jack Teeling, „we are working on it.“
Jack Teeling continues: “Our aim was to create a new Irish whiskey that is contemporary, a salute to our own provenance and which stands out for its quality and unique flavour… At present the Teeling Whiskey Company is an independent Irish whiskey bottler but we aim to get back into the distilling game to ensure a consistent supply of whiskey for the future and allow us to be leaders in creating a bright new future for Irish and Dublin whiskey. We are at advanced stages of a feasibility study on bringing Irish whiskey distilling back to the heart of Dublin.”
Dublin will have a new distillery soon!
Further information:
The Teeling Whiskey Company www.teelingwhiskey.com
The Gateway to Distilleries www.whisky-distilleries.net
About the Author: Ernie – Ernst J. Scheiner M.A. was a director in an adult education centre. Ernie offers courses on whisky distilling, writes for newspapers and magazines in Germany.
He is the editor of The Gateway to Distilleries at www.whisky-distilleries.net which gives an excellent photographic and educational insight into the whisky industry of Scotland, Ireland, Europe and Asia.
