Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/471637
6 / the tasting panel / march 2015 UP UpFront with Yellow Spot At Dead Rabbit Grocery & Grog in NYC, Jack McGarry admires Yellow Spot's "beautiful dried fruit notes." Back in 2011, while visiting the Midleton Distillery in County Cork, Ireland, Pernod Ricard's recently-appointed CEO Alexandre Ricard, who at that time was Chairman and CEO of Irish Distillers, told me he planned to release two new whiskeys a year, in order to dramatically increase Pernod Ricard's already impressive Irish whiskey presence around the globe. He has since kept that promise, much to the delight of mixologists and consumers alike, with such impressive spirits as the reintroduction and expansion of the Redbreast range (a multiple San Francisco International Spirits Competition award winner), the innovative Jameson Select Reserve Black Barrel, the upscale Powers John's Lane and the limited edition Midleton's Barry Crockett Legacy. But the most recent and perhaps most histori- cally dramatic whiskey to be added to the Irish Distiller's portfolio has been the revitalization of the old Mitchell's & Sons Green Spot, and now the newly-reintroduced Yellow Spot Irish whiskey. Both are part of Pernod Ricard's family of proprietary Single Pot Still whiskeys, their term for triple-distilled, copper pot still spirits that originate from a single distillery, which use a mash comprised of both malted and unmalted barley. This results in an underlying and unmistakable single pot still characteristic— a creamy smooth mouthfeel, in addition to other individualities that the barrel aging brings out. To truly appreciate the impact and importance of the newly released Yellow Spot whiskey, a bit of a backstory is in order. The brand was started in 1887 by the Mitchell family of independent bottlers in Dublin. To differentiate the various ages of their casked whiskeys, they would mark the barrels with a small splash of paint—a col- ored spot, if you will—green, red and so on. The first to be released in modern times—certainly since the mid-1960s—was Green Spot ($59.99), by Richard Carleton Hacker / photos by Tim Murray