Creamy textured and mouth-filling without becoming cloying. This has vibrant tropical fruit characters, vanilla, malted barley, cookie dough, pear drop and crème caramel flavours. ..
Finished in a combination of Ruby Port, Tawny Port and Vintage Port after a previous period in bourbon barrels. This has a wonderful taste of fruit 'n' nut chocolate, cookies, plums and red fruits. ..
Immensely sherried, so much so that if you are not keen on sherry matured whiskies then move along now! If you are still here then expect massive flavours of dates, raisins, resinous oak and spice. Incredibly powerful. ..
Totally tropical, the lilt of the whisky world! Flavours of juicy fruits, pineapple, mango, guava, vanilla, malted barley and gentle oak. A perfect dessert whisky. ..
A beautiful 'premium' blend from the Cooley Distillery that has now been discontinued. This was a gold medal winner at the 2008 International Spirits Fair, as well as the Best Irish Blended Whiskey 13-20 yrs at the World Whiskey Awards 2009. It was matured in first-fill bourbon casks...
A fantastic blend that was voted Best Irish blended whiskey two years in a row at the World Whisky awards. Tropical fruits withh lots of polished wood on the palate...
An exciting release from the Kilbeggan distilling company. A blend of grain and malt whiskeys drawn from some of the oldest stocks at the distillery. The components have been matured in a combination of casks including ex-Bourbon, Port, Sherry and Madeira..
This Knappogue Castle single malt spent its life in a bourbon cask. Highly regarded in Jim Murray's Whisky Bible, which describes it as having "huge character"...
While the 12-year-old was matured entirely in bourbon wood, this one has some sherry influence too, which gives it more richness and depth. A nice one to try beside its younger and older brothers... Unpeated and triple-distilled...
The more recent Knappogue Castles have been sourced from Bushmills in Co Antrim, but this one switches back to Cooley. Three casks from 1990, 1991 and 1992, similar to the ones that featured in the Vintage Series, were vatted together and 600 bottles were produced. Lovely to try alongside those individual vintages to see how the malt has developed in the cask over the years...
A triple-distilled single malt matured in a bourbon cask and finished in sherry wood for nine months. This is a bit of a departure from Knappogue, who up to now have focused on bourbon wood. The finishing gives this on extra spice and dried fruit notes, as well as a little more richness. Distilled at Bushmills, only 1,900 bottles were released, with only a small proportion making their way from the US back to Ireland...
Distilled in November 1994, this single malt spent over 15 years in a bourbon barrel before being finished for 21 months in an Oloroso sherry cask. This looks like the Twin Wood 16-year-old that spent an extra year in the second cask. Released in a batch of 4,500 for the US market, some bottles made their way across the Atlantic. Spicy, rich and malty, it's great to try beside the 16-year-old version...
The Knappogue Castle brand got its name from the historic building in Co Clare that American entrepreneur Mark Edwin Andrews purchased in the 1950s. Andrews also had a love of fine whiskey and set about buying casks of old pot still from the remaining stocks of the B Daly Distillery in Tullamore. The whiskey was originally bottled for family and friends, but soon became a brand in its own right. This one was bottled after 36 years in a sherry cask back in 1987. It was rare to begin with and is now very hard to find. It has very obvious notes of bananna, pear and apple, with honey and spice in the background. A real piece of history and a legendary Irish whiskey...
The first in a series of single malt vintages from the Knappogue Castle, released back in 1999. It is a delicate Cooley double distilled malt. It's very grassy with soft vanilla coming from the wood. Later vintages were sourced from Bushmills, and Knappogue started off by bottling very old, very rare pot still whiskey from the old Tullamore Distillery...
Distilled in 1991 at Cooley Distillery and filled into a bourbon cask, where it stayed until 2001. It's the second in the vintage malt series from Knappogue Castle and it's much maltier and more floral than the 1990...
The last of a run of three vintage Cooleys bottled by Knappogue, before the switch to Bushmills. The 1992 was bottled at eight years old after spending its life in a bourbon cask. According to Castle Brands, 'this bottling owns far more grip and structural grace than the 1991'. A very easygoing double-distilled malt. The first of two batches of this vintages, which are subtly different...