Teeling and the New Wave of Irish Distilleries
Teeling is the flagship of the new wave of Irish distilleries: a family business that in 2015 opened the first new distillery in Dublin for 125 years and made its name with bold whiskey finishes in unconventional casks, from rum to wine.
Who are the Teeling brothers?
Jack and Stephen Teeling carry on a family tradition reaching back to 1782, when their ancestor Walter Teeling distilled in Dublin's Liberties district. Their father John Teeling had earlier founded the Cooley distillery (1987), the first to break the monopoly of the big players. The sons opened their own distillery in the Liberties in 2015; Dublin had not seen a new distillery since the 19th century.
What makes Teeling Small Batch different?
Small Batch is a blend finished in Caribbean rum casks and bottled at 46 percent without chill filtration:
- the rum casks contribute notes of vanilla, banana and cane sugar
- the higher strength means a fuller flavour than the usual 40 percent blends
- non-chill-filtered whiskey keeps an oilier texture
For the price, it is one of the most interesting Irish bottles out there.
What do the Single Grain and Single Malt offer?
Teeling Single Grain matures in casks that held Californian red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon), producing unusual notes of red fruit and spice in a category that tends to be dull. The Single Malt combines five types of wine casks (sherry, port, madeira, white burgundy, cabernet) into a complex, fruity whiskey. We carry all three, Small Batch, Single Grain and Single Malt, at Little Island in Frydek-Mistek.
Who else belongs to the new wave?
Alongside Teeling, more than 40 distilleries now operate in Ireland: Dingle on the west coast, Waterford with its barley terroir experiments, Glendalough, Pearse Lyons and Roe & Co in a former Guinness power station. Back in the 1980s, only two distilleries survived in the whole of Ireland.
Where can you taste the new wave?
Best of all next to a classic: the difference between Jameson and Teeling Small Batch will tell you more about the renaissance of Irish whiskey than any article. Call in at Little Island Irish Pub, tr. T. G. Masaryka 1129, Frydek-Mistek. The full menu is at /napojovy-listek.