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Midleton
Micro Distillery where Irish Distillers
are employing both Method and Madness
from the past and present to create some
unique Irish whiskeys for the future.
In a recent whirlwind trip to Ireland
for the launch of Irish Distillers new
Method and Madness whiskey range
I had the pleasure of a visit to the
Midleton Micro Distillery which is
located within the Midleton Distillery
site in County Cork.
Following the launch night in Dublin I
attended a Method and Madness tasting
with the Midleton Masters and
Apprentices after which I squeezed in an
interview with Midleton Master Cooper
Ger Buckley before being shuttled
south from Dublin to the Midleton
Distillery located in Irelands
southernmost County of Cork.
The Method and
Madness in the Midleton Distillery
archives:
After a quick bite of lunch on
arrival at Midleton I visited the old
distillers cottage which until recent
years was the home of the Midleton
Master Distiller, here company archivist
Carol Quinn gave me a fascinating look
into the company's Bow Street distillery
in Dublin and Midleton distillery
archives which revealed the method and
the madness used as far back as the
1800's and the days of John Jameson and
his son John Jameson II.
I had the privilege of browsing through
John Jameson II
notebook which dated back to March 11th
1826. The book contained detailed whisky
recipes in John's own hand writing of
the whiskey production which took place
on this date including detailed info of
the mash bill and production. The new
Midleton Micro Distillery has enabled
Irish Distillers to bring these old
Irish whiskeys back to life by
reproducing the exact same style of whiskey which
John Jameson produced back in these
early days.
Without giving away any detailed recipes
from the archives I can say they did
contain some surprises, they showed that
back in the early days they were just as
innovative and experimental as they are
today at Midleton, this was demonstrated
in their experimentation with different
mash bills, incorporating not only
barley but rye and even oats in the
recipe for whiskey production.
Interestingly when the folks at Midleton
uncovered John Jameson's personal
notebook in their archive they found some
grains wedged between the pages of the book while
browsing through it and they were able to
carbon date these grains back to the
beginning of the 19th Century, and they
are now attempting to indentify the exact
strain so they can replicate it and
reproduce the exact whiskey John Jameson
II produced back in 1826. Will we see a
a special limited edition reproduction
release from John Jameson's exact recipe
from the Midleton Micro Distillery in
2026, 200 years on since it was written,
I wouldn't be surprised, just watch this
space.
Method and
Madness at the Midleton Micro Distillery:
Next stop on my trip was the the
Midleton Micro Distillery were I was
welcomed by Karen Cotter who oversees
distilling at the micro distillery. It
truly is a micro distillery and a
magnificent sight, it has 3 small copper
pot stills, the Wash Still which has a
2,500 litres capacity, the Feints Still
with a 1,500 litre capacity and finally
the Spirit Still which also has a 1,500
litre capacity.
The micro distillery is not a 24 hour
per day, 7 days per week set up
producing the maximum capacity of
whiskey it can, the Micro distillery is
an experimental distillery, an outlet
for the whiskey makers at Midleton, both
masters and apprentices, to experiment
and use their innovation. It is
currently operating over a 5 day week
for 8 hours per day and for 46 weeks a
year with a capacity output of
approximately 50,000 litres per year and
given the experimental nature of the
distillery some of this whiskey will
never see the light of day but who knows
perhaps they will discover the next big
thing by way of a new style of Irish whiskey.
Karen Cotter, who joined Irish
Distillers as a graduate distiller in
2012 now oversees experimental whiskey
distilling at the Midleton micro
distillery, I could very much sense the
enthusiasm and pride from Karen in what
she was doing at the micro distillery,
which is a very much hands on
traditional whiskey production set up
with no modern process control system.
The control is very much in Karen's
hands with just basic local temperature,
pressure, level, specific gravity
indications and of course production
sounds from the stills to keep her
informed of the process and it is up to
her to manually alter and control this
process.
The fermentation process currently takes
place in the main Midleton distillery
and it is pumped to the small storage
tanks in the micro distillery,
everything else takes place in the micro
distillery from the triple distillation
to the filling of the barrels for
maturation.
Even some of the types of barrels being
filled in the micro distillery is part
of the experimental whiskey making
process, when I was there I witnessed
various recently filled barrels such as
American Bourbon, Spanish sherry oak and
the more unconventional French Chestnut
wood which coincidentally is the type of
barrel the newly released Method and
Madness Single Pot Still whiskey has
been finished in.
Midleton Micro Distillery
New Make Spirit Tasting:
To date the micro distillery has produce
11 different distillates and as Midleton
Master Distiller Brian Nation explained,
"not all of them have been fantastic but
all of them have been made but that
doesn't mean that all of them won't be
bottled". As Brian went on to explain,
"at this stage it is too early to write
off any of the distillates as they can
be transformed during maturation".
As part of the micro distillery
experimentation they are maturing some
of the whisky in small casks, when asked
how small the casks were I was very
surprised to hear that some were as
small as 5 litres which they have
specially made. These small casks are
being closely monitored and if they show
potential larger typical sized barrels
of the same type will be filled.
I was treated to a tasting of 3
different styles of micro distillery new
make spirits, each had been produced
with a different mash bill, one was a
standard pot still distillation, one
produced with rye and the third one was
rather uniquely a distillation from a
mash bill of oats which is not a cereal
which is at all commonly used to produce
whiskey but it was discovered in John
Jameson's notes in the company archives
that he had produced a distillation
using oats but there was no note to say
how successful it was so the only way to
find out was to produce some which I
believe took some effort at the Midleton
distillery to process the oats ready for
distillation.
The result of all three distillations I
tasted was all very palatable and showed
promise, particularly the pot still and
rye distillation, the oat distillation
was certainly different, it had a creamy
oatmeal feel to it, not as much
sweetness as the other two and it should
be interesting to see how it develops
through maturation and time.
In the future some of these Midleton
Micro Distillery experiments will be
released into the new Method and Madness
whiskey range and some won't see the
light of day but one things for sure the
future sure looks good for Irish whiskey
connoisseurs looking for something
different but still with that Irish
whiskey DNA which they enjoy.
The Method and Madness whiskey range will be available in the UK,
France and Ireland (including Irish
travel retail) from this month at the
respective RRPs of €49, €69 and €79. The
Method and Madness 31 Year Old, Single
Cask, Single Grain will be available in
the same territories from April 2017,
priced at €1,500. Al the of the whiskeys
will be available
from specialist online whisky retailers such as
Master of
Malt
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