Nose: Hints of apple peel and pear skin, a tinge of lemon zest and galia melon, and also milk chocolate and a whiff of brown sugar. A nice balance exists in this whiskey which rests on a medium body. However it does come across a touch hot and dry. In the mouth: Just like on the nose, this is a wild and incoherent mix of fruit notes arising from various ex-wine cask influences. There are light tastes of red bananas, gooseberries, mocha, chocolate raisins, ripe plums, bergamot, basil, flower petals, apples, Tinta Negra Madeira, cascara tea and chamomile tea. A light flash of sulfur comes and goes. Conclusions: We loved this tour and tasting so much it is the only activity we repeated on a trip with our adult children other than the Book of Kells. This time we had the pleasure of having Marc as our tour guide. He was equally as entertaining and informative as Jaime 1mwas last March. Highly recommend!! Jenna W In the mouth: Similar to the nose. There are bold and enveloping tastes of apples, barley and plums. Honey, star apples and atis are bolder here, but they end abruptly and give way to cloves, dried apricots and prunes. At the end are flashes of dry Chardonnay, more star apples, atis and guava.

The Irish will tell you they invented whiskey-making, and it wasn’t until the Middle Ages that Irish monks brought distilling techniques across the waters to Scotland. Yet that short distance has been far enough that the two whiskeys evolved, over the centuries, into very different styles. Third in the line-up is Teeling’s Single Malt. Two types of yeast are used here. One is a white wine yeast from South Africa, and the other is a distiller’s yeast. The fermentation results in a 10% ABV wash. The whisky are aged separately for 9 to 23 years in ex-cabernet sauvignon, ex-Madeira, ex-white Burgundy, ex-port or ex-sherry casks. They are blended afterwards, which really varies batches. (I’m pretty sure the distillates for the single malt are still from Cooley, as the Teeling distillery was only established in 2015.) Dried fruit, malt, dark fruit, toffee, malty sweetness, banana and light notes of apricot, brown sugar and grains. Similar to a “traditional” Irish Whiskey nose, but amped up a notch and accented by some darker notes. A pleasant aroma indeed.This needs some time to open up. At the time of the virtual tasting, the flavors were quite muddled. The heat getting in the way didn’t help, either. Even after opening up, the flavors were still incoherent. As expected of Central American rum, which are mainly column distilled and made in efficient ways, it doesn’t lend many flavors. This is a forgettable and inoffensive whisky that beginners will enjoy. Score: 4/10 The Teelings, having ran Cooley before Beam-Suntory bought it, obviously know the Irish whiskey category very well and so it’s no surprise they know what it takes to compete for shelf space these days. It’s not delivering yet another “same old” whiskey, it’s delivering something that stands apart and gives the consumer a real choice to make when staring at the shelves on the whiskey aisle and for that I thank them. Seriously, thank you Teelings for the Teeling Small Batch Irish; thank you for not releasing yet another chill-filtered 80 proof Irish blend into the market and giving us something new and different to explore! Teeling Small Batch Irish Info

Teeling’s grain whisky comes from the Great Northern Distillery, owned by John Teeling (Thanks, Phil). It was mentioned in the tasting that John owns shares in the Teeling distillery as well. The grain whisky are aged in ex-Cabernet Sauvignon barrels from California; these casks aren’t re-toasted or re-charred. On a side note, it was nice of them to say that they receive the wine casks with still 6L of wine in it. Ex-wine casks often have some wine left in them during transit to prevent the cask from going bad. Irish whiskey producers generally use a mix of malted and unmalted barley for their mash bill – unlike the Scots, who use all malted barley – and these unmalted grains may enhance earthy, oily notes in the spirit. They generally dry the grains with ovens, instead of the Scots’ traditional peat fires, so with some exceptions Irish whiskeys don’t have the smoky aromas that characterize many scotch whiskies. Finally, Irish whiskeys are typically distilled three times, which is one more go-around than is usual for most scotch whiskies. In the mouth: Not as hot as on the nose. Light confectionery notes like mocha, toffee and honey are more upfront here, but they’re taken over by slightly more intense tastes of fruits like star fruit, lime peel, mandarin oranges, canned peaches, grapes and grape skin. At the end are flashes of KitKat raisin chocolate and a raisin ice cream. Conclusions:The Teeling Small Batch Irish may not be something I want to drink everyday, but it’s definitely something I’ll be reaching for now and then to break up my usual flavor patterns. Especially if you spend a lot of time drinking heavy cask strength behemoths it’s good to change things up a bit. Take some time and explore lighter, more nuanced whiskeys from time to time to remind your palate and olfactory what subtlety means.