Qualla: Irish Whiskey

Irish Whiskey: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ziko, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Irish call it uisce beatha. Water of life. The phrase, anglicized over centuries into the word whiskey itself, started as a literal translation from Latin - aqua vitae - the term medieval monks used for the perfumed distillates they carried home from southern Europe around the year 1000. Somewhere between the perfume bottle and the parish, the Irish made a small, momentous adjustment. They drank it. By 1556 the Parliament of Ireland was already complaining that whiskey had become 'universally throughout this realm made,' and grumbling about how its consumption did the populace no good. The complaints did not stop the distilling. The complaints almost never do.

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Image: Ziko | CC BY-SA 3.0

Irish Whiskey: A World on Fire for Irish Whiskey

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alfred Barnard (1837-1918), Public domain. For most of the nineteenth century, Irish whiskey was the most popular spirit on Earth. In 1887, when the British historian Alfred Barnard published his great survey of distilleries across Britain and Ireland, twenty-eight Irish distilleries were still operating. Dublin's giants ...

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Image: Alfred Barnard (1837-1918) | Public domain

Irish Whiskey: The Collapse

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Original uploader was Cafeirlandais at en.wikipedia, CC BY 2.5. The market did not come to them. It went to Scotland. A cascade of catastrophes hit in the early twentieth century: the Irish War of Independence, the Civil War that followed, and the Anglo-Irish Trade War that cut off whiskey exports to Britain and the Commonwealth - then Irelan...

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Image: Original uploader was Cafeirlandais at en.wikipedia | CC BY 2.5

Irish Whiskey: The Slow Return

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jack Shainsky from Jerusalem, Israel, CC BY 2.0. The turn started in 1987 with an outsider. John Teeling, an academic and entrepreneur, opened Cooley Distillery in County Louth - the first new Irish distillery in generations and the only one outside the Irish Distillers monopoly. For years he was alone. Then, slowly, Irish whis...

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Image: Jack Shainsky from Jerusalem, Israel | CC BY 2.0

Irish Whiskey: The Three Styles, and a Fourth

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit my friend, Y. Kohno, CC BY-SA 3.0. Walk into any Irish distillery tour and you will be told the styles. Single malt is made entirely from malted barley, distilled in pot stills within a single distillery - the same style Scotland uses for its single malts, often triple-distilled here for a smoother spirit. Single ...

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Image: my friend, Y. Kohno | CC BY-SA 3.0

Irish Whiskey: Heart of the Story, in Cork

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nialljpmurphy, CC BY-SA 4.0. If Irish whiskey has a beating heart today, it sits in Midleton, twenty-five kilometers east of Cork city. The Old Midleton Distillery, built in 1825, houses the largest pot still ever built - 31,618 gallons, so big the still room had to be assembled around it. Beside the old sto...

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Image: Nialljpmurphy | CC BY-SA 4.0