Push the boat out on your Irish celebrations with a £1,000 whiskey
This weekend is the perfect excuse to indulge in some Irish whiskey. But if you’re feeling particularly indulgent, you should get your hands on a bottle of The Craft Irish Whiskey Co.’s new rare release, The Taoscán.
The Taoscán is the first whiskey finished in a combination of tawny port and French chestnut barrels. Bottled at cask strength (48.53% ABV) this single malt is a boisterous parade of bold and vibrant flavours, sure to bring the craic to your St. Paddy’s party.
The Craft Irish Whiskey Co. was founded in 2018, by Irish entrepreneur Jay Bradley; a whiskey enthusiast “on a mission to make Irish whiskey great again”. In a varied career, which began crafting furniture with his father, before moving into restaurants, Bradley gained an appreciation for the flavouring-effects of different woods.
As a competitive barbecuer he even took part in the World Championships as a pitmaster. Describing The Taoscán, he says it is, “Probably one of the most complex whiskies I’ve ever had.”
The Irish Craft Whiskey Co. is not a distillery. It buys whiskies directly from premium brand distilleries, maturing and finishing them in novel ways. They go to considerable efforts to find the right barrels to develop the flavours they want in their whiskies, including the use of unusual woods.
The triple-distilled Irish whiskey used to make The Taoscán was sourced from Bushmills in County Antrim, which was founded in 1608, and is the oldest distillery in the British Isles. The liquid is matured for 11 and a half years in American white oak, ex-bourbon casks, then 18 months in oloroso sherry butts, before finishing for two years in a mix of tawny port and French chestnut casks.
While Bushmills ages its whiskies in the north of Ireland, secondary maturation on The Taoscán took place in Cork, with the warmer southern climes accelerating the process. The Craft Irish Whiskey Co. takes an unconventional approach to ageing their spirits, such as under-filling barrels, or adding water to the barrel (as opposed to the normal process of diluting when bottling), to give the water time to take on more flavour.
The Craft Irish Whiskey Co. website proudly states, “Before whiskey was anything else, it was Irish.” The oldest documentary evidence of whiskey in Ireland dates from 1405. The Annals of Clonmacnoise record that a clan chief died after “taking a surfeit of aqua vitae”.
The earliest written mention of whisky in Scotland came almost 90 years later. But setting aside the arguments about where whisk(e)y originated, by the late 19th century, Irish whiskey was the most popular drink in the world.
However, it suffered a long period of decline, with Prohibition in America hitting the industry especially hard, and by the early 1970s there were only two commercial distilleries on the island of Ireland.
The Scottish whisky industry fared rather better, and the recent resurgence of production in Ireland owes a great deal to growing interest in Scottish single malts. The collector’s edition box includes not only the bottle, but a copper-accented glass, a pair of whiskey stones, a copper pipette, a carafe, and a coaster.
Is it all a bit gimmicky? Perhaps, but The Taoscán tastes great. On the nose you get banana bread, toasted nuts and vanilla Coke. On the tongue it prickles like a rye whiskey, but that gives way to a creaminess, with notes of marshmallow and chocolate digestives, and the finish is surprisingly dry, with traces of rich fruitcake.
It is complex and fast-moving, and it should be welcomed by anyone who appreciates big flavours, novelty, and innovation. The Craft Irish Whiskey Co. is tapping into tradition with the name of this release.
A “taoscán” is the Irish-language equivalent of a “dram”, and Matt Healy, an Irish whiskey expert at the Edinburgh Whisky Academy, is a passionate advocate for the use of the word when talking about a serving of Irish whiskey.
In an issue of their publication A Spirited View, he explains, “In what must be heralded one of the most unintentional and successful marketing campaigns ever, the Scotch industry introduced the whisky world to the ways of Scottish hospitality and the concept of ‘coming in for a dram’.”
He talks of the huge advantage of being able to summarise the whole Scottish culture of making and enjoying whisky in a single word, and suggests that as Irish whiskey reclaims a place of global prominence, it should revive the “taoscán”, in the hope that it might fulfil a similar function.
- The Taoscán will be on sale at London venues including the Ned, and the Michelin starred Frog restaurant in Covent Garden – which for one week only will be selling a special “Celtic-inspired dish” paired with The Taoscán – and in retail, exclusively from Selfridges. Only 1,000 700ml collector edition bottles will be available to the public, with a RRP of £1,000. Pre-orders can be placed from 17 March – St Patrick’s Day – at: www.craftirishwhiskey.com.