Whiskey / Whisky

You ‘crack’ the whiskey with a droplet of water from a straw, swirl it in the glass and watch the ripples trickle down the walls inside. You smell the aroma of peat used for heating during the pot still distillation three years previously before it was placed in its oak cask where it waited until now. You drink and take the taste, it’s a smokey type of sensation and feels traditional for no other reason than you know people have been doing this for hundreds of years.

This used to happen in Ireland. It used to happen in Scotland. The difference between the two nations is that it still happens a lot in Scotland. Ireland lost its way in the age old craft of whiskey/whisky production – and a note here, there is more of a difference between the two than the subtlety of the spelling. There is an argument over where the famous Uisce Beatha was first produced, Ireland or Scotland, however there is no argument now over who is the contemporary industry leader.

Ireland’s range whiskey production has been reduced from its heyday at the start of the 20th century when there were up to 80 distilleries on the island to a point today where there are just four. Despite rumours of potential distilleries cropping up Belfast and Porterhouse’s work in Dingle, the charge is still being led and dominated by commercial giants Bushmills and Jameson. Two brands which tend to focus more on industrial output and large profits rather than the art of the traditional craft. The Cooley and Kilbeggan distilleries are more inclined to the way things were however, and Bushmills do still produce a single malt so the tradition has not been lost entirely. The situation in Scotland however is much different.
Scotland has more whisky regions than Ireland does actual distilleries. An undercurrent in the Scottish tourist industry has risen in reaction to the interest in its wide range of product, not too dissimilar from the manner in which the French wine industry is revered. Scotland has five single malt whisky regions; the less popular Lowlands; the sweeter Speyside; the rather varied Highlands, the heavily productive Speyside; the dry, peaty Islay and the full bodied Campbelltown. This large network was being built at the same time as Ireland was establishing itself as the best whiskey producer in the world, and whereas they Scots subsequently strengthened, Ireland unfortunately lost its way.

If you enjoy whiskey and you are in Edinburgh, go up to the castle for a look but don’t pay in, rather return to just before the end of the terrace of the Royal Mile. There’s an old school house there that has been turned into the largest whisky collection in the world. The Scotch Whisky Experience is an introduction to whisky for those unfamiliar with it, but it also serves those who want to learn more. There are plenty of other options around Edinburgh or Glasgow to sample without paying for a tour though
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Carla, our tour guide, from Barcelona has worked at the Scotch Whisky Experience for three years and has become something of an expert in her four years in Scotland. Diplomatically, she didn’t claim Scotch was better or invented before whiskey, but did appreciate that the traditional craft has been somewhat lost in Ireland and regularly mentioned our historical dominance.

The question you ask is what ever happened to whiskey? How did we go from supposedly being the best in the world at the craft, to a situation where it’s difficult to judge in a monopolised market? In the early 20th century, there were up to 80 legal distilleries in Ireland (excluding the unquantifiable poitín stills) at its height.
John Cashman from the Cooley Distillery in Louth explained how a number of events transpired to effectively destroy the craft distillers’ network in Ireland with independence from Britain forming the critical contextual event to what happened. Broadly speaking there were three reasons for the decline, chief among them was the temperance movement in the country. Here, there developed an inherent fear propagated by the Catholic Church that if you drank you would go to Hell – thus many chose not to. This would’ve been part of the problem, though the prevalence of Good Friday barbeques across the country in contemporary Ireland will lend a clue to historical every-single-day levels of temperance.

The second problem was modern technology. The column still technique of distillation was invented which enabled continuous production of the liquid and allowed for a larger-scale more productive output, although the quality was reduced. Irish distillers, preferring the traditional pot still procedure, refused to accept the change. Their counterparts in Scotland were more inventive however; they embraced the new technique and began blending this with single malts to produce a higher quality, more palatable drink. The result was a rise in popularity for Scotch distilleries, and as the Irish declined the Scots seized advantage and began buying up their Irish competitors.

The final contributor in the erosion of the once proud industry was down to the closing off of our two primary markets. One we slammed the door shut ourselves while the other was entirely out of our own hands. The resulting economic war between Ireland and Britain once the Free State was established saw the government of the time close ties with our closest neighbour, thus eliminating our largest export market for everything – including whiskey. In America where Irish whiskey held a 60% share of the market, prohibition was introduced. The culmination of these two events saw the a rapid decline in distilleries across the country from the peak of 80 in the early 20th century, down to six after World War II, to just four now with the most recent (Cashman’s employers and the first Irish-owned for some time) opening in Cooley in 1987.
The Cooley distillery hardly holds any of the old romance associated with the type of building one would presume – the Jameson visitor centre in Smithfield, Dublin springs to mind though no whiskey is actually produced there. The industrial shed in Louth was a formerly an ethanol plant, and was transformed in less than thirty years into a successful and respected distillery and cites its raison d’être as reviving old Irish brands and rediscovering the former tastes associated with Irish triple-distilled whiskey that some connoisseurs had come to describe as bland.

John Cashman is the Cooley Ambassador, and he explained how they produce the liquid in Cooley and the whiskey is then matured in oaked casks depending on their brand. The inevitable monopoly that arose when distilleries were reduced to just four saw triple-distilled as the product chosen for production, however Cooley have a much wider variety seeking in to reset connoisseurs preconceptions, describing the Irish whiskey they distil as being “full of character and flavour.”

You would hope that the best efforts of craft breweries and distilleries don’t get undone yet again and driven out of the market by aggressive monopolies. As swift as one may be to blame the callous Scotch distilleries for pouncing on Ireland’s misfortune, proud ‘Irish’ brands Guinness and Bulmers have historically been guilty of similar tactics with their competitors on the island. The hope among industry artisans is to bring variety to the market, and perhaps in the future re-establish Ireland’s former reputation for drink – that of the craft and not that of Copper Face Jacks on a Saturday night. The expectation would be that they wouldn’t get blinded by the lights of large scale, highly profitable monopolies again, although history has an unfortunate way of repeating itself in this country.

John Cashman explains how today it is difficult for distillers to get started as they will have to wait three years before seeing a return on their product and the setting up whiskey production is expensive. This in contrast to the craft brewing industry which has ‘exploded in Ireland of late,’ with the likes of Galway Hooker, Dungarvan Ale and the Hilden Brewers in Belfast seeing a resurgence in recent times. At the moment, the Porterhouse Brewing Company making a whiskey in Dingle and are to fund the interim three years by selling vodka and gin, however little has come of that as yet. Similarly in Belfast, there were rumours of a new distillery, unfortunately to date, rumours is all they appear to be. Even the whiskey being produced in the Kilbeggan in Westmeath as part of Cooley’s work isn’t going to be available for consumption until 2014.

According to Cashman, “Ireland’s whiskey is currently riding on the crest of a wave; it’s the fastest growing brown spirit in the world at the moment.” Although he placed a caveat on that, remarking that it is the Irish Distillers group impressive marketing campaigns fronted by Jameson that are the reason for the successes. Cooley are making inroads however, the near lost craft is being kept alive. The hope is to learn from the past, revive it where appropriate and be innovative where possible –the hope remains that this isn’t another element of Ireland’s unfortunate cyclical histories, because if it is the only other option is to just hop across to Scotland.