The SOMM Journal

February / March 2016

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16 { THE SOMM JOURNAL } FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016 { fine spirits } ONE OF IRELAND'S NEWEST WHISKIES is actually one of its oldest. In 1782, Walter Teeling established a distillery on Marrowbone Lane in Dublin, in what became known as the Golden Triangle, home to more than 37 distilleries within a one-mile area. However, the last of these dis- tilleries shut down in 1976. Eleven years later, Walter Teeling's descendant, John, created Cooley's, the first new Irish distillery in over 100 years. And now, the Teeling name is again directly associated with Irish whiskey as John's sons, Stephen and his older brother Jack, have just opened the Teeling Whiskey Distillery, the first in Dublin in over 125 years and located near the site of Walter Teeling's original distillery. But, because it takes a minimum of three years to age Irish whiskey, while the first distillations from the three copper pot stills are maturing, the Teeling brothers have sourced whiskies from the 18,000 barrels their father bought from Beam Inc. after they purchased Cooley's. "Jack and I thought: What can we do that's different?" says Stephen. "Because our family's casks contained whiskies between three and 30 years old, the only thing we could do until we got back into production was to innovate in terms of maturation and whiskey finishing, to get some serious drinkers back into Irish whiskey." The result is The Teeling Trinity of premium whiskies, all non-chill-filtered, carrying no age statement and bottled at 96 proof. The first was Teeling Small Batch ($40), a sweet and spicy sipping whiskey composed of seven-year-old single malts and five-year-old grain whiskies, which are married in ex-rum barrels for six months. Next came Teeling Single Grain ($50), a 95% corn mash combined with 5% malted barley, finished in Napa Cabernet Sauvignon wine barrels, then aged approximately six years. The result is a deeper sweet spice flavor with vanilla and tannin overtones. Teeling Completes the Trinity The Teeling Trinity of premium whiskies, all non-chill-filtered, carrying no age statement and bottled at 96 proof. TEELING WHISKEY'S NEWEST IRISH SINGLE MALT DEBUTS FROM DUBLIN'S ONLY WORKING DISTILLERY by Richard Carleton Hacker

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