Whiskeys Of Ireland

History of Whiskey
"The More I Kissed her, The More I loved Her" - Nancy Whiskey

Home History Single Malt Pure Pot Still Single Grain Blends Poteen Scotch Whisky Canadian Whisky American Bourbon Irish Whiskey Reviews	The Scottish most likely learned how to distill from the Irish (but they won't ever admit it) just as the Irish learned about it from missionary monks who arrived in Ireland in the seventh century, at least according to the Irish. The actual details of the next 700 years or so aren't totally clear, but it does seem reasonable to think that monks in the various monasteries were distilling uisce beatha ("water of life"), primarily for making medical compounds. These first distillates were probably grape or fruit brandy rather than grain spirit. Barley-based whiskey first appears in the historical record in the mid-1500s when the Tudor kings began to consolidate English control in Ireland. Queen Elizabeth I was said to be fond of it and had casks shipped to London on a regular basis. Ireland, Birthplace of Whiskey	The excise tax, imposed in 1661, had the same effect as it did in Scotland, with the immediate production of poteen (the Irish version of moonshine). This did not, however, slow down the growth of the Irish whiskey distilling industry, and by the end of the 18th century there were over 2,000 stills in operation around Ireland.

		Irish whiskey comes in several forms. There is single malt whiskey made from 100% malted barley distilled in a pot still, and grain whiskey made from grains distilled in a column still. Grain whiskey is much lighter and more neutral in flavor than single malt and is almost never bottled as a single grain. It is instead used to blend with single malt to produce a lighter blended whiskey. Unique to Irish whiskey is pure pot still whiskey (100% barley, either mixed malted and unmalted, or single malt, distilled in a pot still). The "green" unmalted barley gives the traditional pure pot still whiskey a spicy, uniquely Irish quality. Like single malt, pure pot still is sold as such or blended with grain whiskey. There is usually no real distinction made between a blended whiskey being made from single malt or pure pot still. A Modern day Pot still pictured above

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