Teeling

The Teeling Distillery wsa established in the Liberties area of Dublin by brothers Jack and Stephen Teeling in 2011 - their father John launched the Cooley Distillery in 1987, which broke up the monopoly from Irish Distillers who owned the only two remaining distilleries in the country up to that point. John Cooley relaunched brands such as Tyrconnel and also shook up the market by experimenting with cask types and flavour profiles to highlight how diverse Irish whiskey could become.

The Teeling family has history with whiskey in Ireland - back in 1782 Walter Teeling established a distillery on Marrowbone Lane in the Liberties region - at that time there were 37 distilleries in Dublin alone, most in the Liberties.

The Teeling Distillery itself didn't actually start producing spirit until March 2015, with the brothers cutting a deal with Beam International to aged whiskey from the Cooley Distillery that Beam had purchased in 2012.

The Small Batch Series is a selection of bottlings playing around with cask finishing, offering alternative profiles to the house Teeling style. In this instance, Teeling teamed up with Dublin-based DOT Brew to finish their blend of malt and grain whiskies - initially aged in ex-Bourbon casks for aorund 6 years - for 12 months in barrels that originally held DOT Brew's Red Rum Dark VII, a rich, almost sweet amber/red ale.

The end result is an absolute joy - the ale element really shines through, with a rich, gently hoppy note merging with soft malt and toffee. There's a beery bite and a slight effervescence while still maintaining the juicy fruit notes of the whiskey at it's heart. I think this is a triumph of marrying two quite different flavour profiles together and highly encourage you to try it!