Ep. 71 - The Illicit History and Legalization of Irish Poitín

Transcript

Drew (00:00:09):
Welcome to whiskey lore, the interviews, I'm your host Drew Hannush, the Amazon bestselling author of whiskey LO's travel guide to experience in Kentucky bourbon. And on this week's show, I am gonna continue my series of interviews that are meant to help bring some clarity to the rebirth of the Irish whiskey industry, as well as taking a look at its past. And just like with Scotland and the United States, Ireland has a long tradition of both legal and illicit distilling. And in the former, the unaged spirit is known as moonshine in Ireland, though the spirit is called Poitin. And that of course is not to be confused with Poitin, which is a French Canadian dish that's made with French fries, cheese curds, or cottage, cheese, and gravy. Yes. I know you are smacking those lips right now. You know, Poitin is usually a clear spirit that has a history that is married right alongside its cousin, Irish whiskey, and to many outsiders who aren't familiar with Ireland's past this particular spirit has a lot of mystery around it.

Drew (00:01:25):
And so I decided to invite onto the show, a distillery founder, whose family has been making illegal Patin for generations, and they have now found their way into doing it legally with the first distillery to open in Galway in over 100 years, my guest is Padraic O Grish of Miel distillery. And during this episode, pork is going to help us understand the history of Irish Patin and is also going to help us understand what it's made out of what it's not made out of and how the Irish distillery today is embracing it. And we'll also dive into the history of Galway distilling and its relationship to continental Europe, and we'll even get a couple of stories in from pork's grandfather, M the namesake for the distillery. So let's go ahead and dive right in and start learning all about Poitin with pork from Kel pork. Welcome to the show.

Pádraic (00:02:29):
Thanks me for having me drew.

Drew (00:02:31):
This is great. Get to get to see you again, although it was nicer to see you in person actually, when I was there at the distillery three and a half weeks ago.

Pádraic (00:02:40):
Yeah. It's time flies, but yes, it's always better in person. <Laugh>, that's what I found anyway.

Drew (00:02:46):
Exactly. And that way I get to sample, see, I can't really sample through they, they need to work something out on the internet where we're able to send samples through the internet.

Pádraic (00:02:56):
Yeah. I, I think it's probably something inevitable, but however, I still think it's better, you know, doing that at the distillery or at the place, whatever it is is being made.

Drew (00:03:06):
So I, I had a very traditional Irish arrival, I think, to your distillery because when I came in, it was pouring rain. It was coming down sideways, it was cold. We talked for probably an hour and a half to two hours. I left and it was sunny and it was beautiful. There wasn't a cloud, the sky, it was so comfortable. I'm like what world am I in?

Pádraic (00:03:32):
This is the world of west of Ireland or kumara or Galway. And the weather changes incredibly quickly you can force seasons in one day. But I, I think it, it's almost like somewhat kind of the, the mood of the people and how we kind of you know guided or, or sort of driven by we'll say the, the the, the immediate kind of weather conditions. So, you know, yes, it does. It does change quite quickly. <Laugh>

Drew (00:04:02):
Yeah. So I, I was thinking when I got back that I really wanted to do an episode around Poitin because it's it, it, it's a liquid that people in the us probably don't know about. Some of the worldwide audience may not know about it, and it's got a long legacy. There are only a handful of distilleries in Ireland that are making it right now. Correct. And I was really struck with the quality of what you guys were making there. And, and so, and, and not only that, but the family legacy behind it. And so I thought who better to have on the show for, to talk about not only patine, but also talk about the whiskey that you're making and about the brand nickel and the rest. There's a lot of history Galway hasn't had distilling for a long time. So I want to jump into all of that stuff. If you've got if you're ready and raring to go,

Pádraic (00:05:00):
I am ready and raring to go. And look, there's a tremendous history there both of pu making whiskey making and you know, huge amount of depth to that story. And of course a great depth to the story of nickel as well.

Drew (00:05:15):
So how many generations are we talking about in your family?

Pádraic (00:05:18):
So we are the sixth generation of distillers. So my brother and I are both sixth generation distillers. My brother's actually the head distiller here at M distillery. But we learned directly from our grandfather, our late grandfather, Jimmy, and he would've been with us there until 2020. And he got a good long age of 93 years old mm-hmm <affirmative>, but it was really how to put it great for him to see the first generation doing pu legally, because a lot of people don't realize that Poitin was illegal in Ireland up until 1997, but we, we can get into the reasons why it actually became illicit in the first place. And it's normally not what people were thinking. People have misconceptions around how it's made what it's, you know, what it's made from and why it became illegal.

Pádraic (00:06:05):
So we can, we can jump into all of that. And one other key thing, I think that a lot of people don't realize or aren't aware of, and I mean, this collectively, I don't mean just Irish people or, or, or people from elsewhere, but a lot of them don't see that Poitin and whiskey were the same spirit historically. And the only thing that separated them really was the ownership of a license. And I think the word that encapsulates both of them is the Irish language word, which is called Fuke. Uh'll get to Fuke later again as well. And the etymology of that and how it relates to a more modern word that we're very, very familiar with.

Drew (00:06:43):
And for people who have heard in Scotland and in the us, we refer to the illicit spirit as being moon shine. It, would it be a fair assessment to say that Poitin is really the Irish moon shine?

Pádraic (00:07:02):
It's it's a pretty good sort of how would I put this encapsulation of us but just to give people a bit of background the earliest written record we have of aqui Vita making here in Ireland, which is Latin for water of life is 1324. And that's in the red book of oy. And it's not to suggest that we don't have traditions that are older. It's just, we have some reference that gives us you know, a very precise date and we'll work on, on the basis that that is our earliest record. It is at the moment. And this is when Poitin began or indeed what we now know today as whiskey and the tradition developed and by the 17th century it had become huge in Ireland making your own spirit at home.

Pádraic (00:07:51):
And then tax was introduced in 1661. And then we decided, because we were still under British rule kind of like yourselves, historically, we decided not to pay the taxes and rather to start hiding our stills and this echoes and mirrors what would've happened in the us as well. When taxes were first introduced on distilled liquor and Irish and Scottish distillers. I mean, we, we know that there's a huge tradition in the us that we had a huge amount of immigration and many of these immigrants, you know, came from all over, you know, the world, Ireland, Scotland, Europe, et cetera. And you know, the Irish and Scottish distillers, one of the, the great legacies that they brought was distilling, and they also wanted to avoid local taxes. So they continues this at nighttime tradition in efforts to avoid tax and the authorities.

Pádraic (00:08:48):
And of course, because of the time of day it was made, it was known as moon shine. And so that will be the link between Poitin and, and moon shine. It's remarkable looking at the old Poitin stills and comparing them to some of the old moon shine stills, the resemblance, and you know, it it's, it's it's really incredible. The, the other thing I'd say is that just so that people are aware of the etymology of Poitin so it comes from the Irish language and a small part in Irish is called Poitin and just a basic part is known as Pata. So basically that's what it means. Something made in a small pot still.

Drew (00:09:26):
Yeah. So, and as I traveled around, most people were pronouncing it as poaching. Or you would hear it as poaching, or I, I, I heard all sorts of different variations on it. Did you, you actually put kind of a T sound on it instead of a ch sound and, and this is something that I found, and maybe this, you can speak to this in scotch. We, you know, there are those names that go back to the, the Galax tradition, but they all seem to have the same pronunciation, but around Ireland, there seems to be a lot of dialects, different variations. And so is that kind like maybe a Cera translation of that pronunciation or, or how would you assess that?

Pádraic (00:10:15):
Yeah, it's, it's it's, it's a great kind of question. So in the Irish language you know, we have, and by the way, just to give people a bit of insight here as well two hundreds to 500 ad the Gaelic or Celtic culture essentially was throughout Ireland that, that was sort of the, the, the Celtic culture. And of course the Irish language, this is old Irish. And at that point both the island of Ireland and Scotland spoke the same language. Okay. And then of course through for various reasons we wouldn't have time to go into all today but basically mostly to do with the colonization of, of Ireland and, and indeed Scotland, there is an evolution then of those languages. So they are still from the same roots, but can we communicate freely with each other now?

Pádraic (00:11:10):
No, but we would pick up very specific words now in terms of the pronunciation of Poitin, if we all acknowledge and it's it's it doesn't need even need acknowledgement. It is an Irish language word the most authentic way to pronounce it is in that language. And, and the T would be a slender T as I would call it as a, as a former Irish teacher and, and shooter. But throughout the country, there are various dialects. So ster has its own dialect, and that even varies within ster K has its own dialect, Munster, Lester, et cetera. And even within those provinces, there's a great degree of difference between dialects. So you can actually tell certainly historically, you know, and, and maybe perhaps with the older demographic, because they weren't as affected by globalization and social media, et cetera, you can actually pinpoint more precisely where they grew up.

Pádraic (00:12:03):
So I of often have interesting conversations with people that I meet, and I, I love to try and guess where they're from, you know, based on their, on their dialect. Anyway, this is a very long winded way of explaining the pronunciation of Poitin, but the T would be slender. So let's take ster in the Irish language. They would say, patine you go to Galway or Komara then, or indeed wider Ks. And it would be mostly called Poitin for us. And then if you go to monster, they would emphasize the latter syllable like they do with many of their words. And to them, it's patine where they would emphasize the, the latter part of it. And, and the, the pieces of Lester that still have a bit of Irish language being spoken would very much be either conduct version or the monster version Poitin or protein is still okay. It just it's the anglicized form.

Drew (00:12:53):
Okay. All right. That works. And while we're talking about linguistics and anglicized forms, maybe this is a good time to jump into the other piece that you were talking about, which is about the other spirit. Yeah. That has evolved out of that early tradition.

Pádraic (00:13:12):
Yeah. So giving credits where credit is due, I mean, distilling originally came from the middle east for making perfumes and essential oils, the Europeans ruined it or perfected it by then adding wine to these herbs, flowers and spices. And then later this tradition came to Ireland and it was brought by monks who would've been traveling back and forth between Ireland and, and Europe. And they translated this aqui Vita, you know, water of life, spirit into the Irish language, which became known as ish GIBA, which is a very good translation by the way. It still means water of life. And then ish GIBA, which is two words, became one word, it became Fuke. And again, kind of like yourselves we were colonized and Irish language words were ized. So for instance to make Fuke more easy to pronounce in the English language, a w was added after the F and even a K was also added now remove the F you've now got whisk eventually fully anglicized. It becomes whiskey. So that's in fact where whiskey comes from.

Drew (00:14:19):
Okay. And so now that we have whiskey and we have Poitin, we have the two splitting apart, and you have whiskey distillers who are legal, who apparently were having some trouble with the taxes that the taxes were really eating into their profit. So they started really overproducing to try to beat the tax. And I had heard that they were actually that Patin actually got a better reputation over time. Was that the way it was, as far as we know that really there was a point where Patin was just much more desirable than whiskey at that point.

Pádraic (00:15:06):
So, yes Poitin was more desirable through specific periods of history. I think one of the turning points in whiskey, which we get to the moment would've been 1823, but, you know, throughout the sort of 17th and 18th centuries early whiskey in Ireland had a struggle. And one of its big struggles was this the, the, you know, how do you find a balance between taxation and actually creating good spirit? And as you're referred to, they were trying to sort of keep up with the tax as in producing more. And this was based on the way they were taxed. They were taxed on the out, sorry. They were based on, they were taxed based on the size of their operations rather than their actual outputs. And this was in attempt by the authorities to keep the distilleries honest but this kind of backfired on them because the quality of spirit that they were producing was poor.

Pádraic (00:15:59):
And then as a result they sold less of it. So of course, people turned to the superior quality spirit, which was not made under time constraints, which was following the more traditional methodologies which was Poitin, interestingly as well, these whiskey distilleries, they were experiencing foaming and they were using stuff like carbolic soap. They also would've made their pots shallower so that they could run the spirit through quicker. So it basically they would boil up quicker, but look, as we know, making whiskey should not be you know, done quickly, you know, and, and if you rush it you'll create a course spirit. So it was not the right way to go. But anyway, I think in 1823, it was probably a sign that the mindset by the tax authorities was changing and the likes of this famous character called anus coffee would've certainly informed the anus coffee by the way, was probably the best known tax collector in Irish whiskey history that I'm aware of at least.

Pádraic (00:17:03):
And he was a trusted advisor to government because he was on their side as a tax collector, but also he had this very deep understanding of the way distilleries worked. And later, in fact, he invented and you still call the coffee still named after himself. But before we get to that, I guess he was you know, quite influential in the shift in mindset. And one of the big shifts was the time of payment of tax. So up until 1823 distilleries were obliged to pay the tax on spirit. As soon as it came off their stills. After this year, they were permitted to pay the tax on the whiskey coming out of the CAS. And of course this was to encourage leaving it in the CASC. And once they discovered that this encouragement and, and sort of incentive worked it later became legislation and, and the legal requirement that whiskey would have to be aged in a wooden CAS for X amount of time, which today is three years.

Drew (00:18:03):
So it's interesting that because I read this not too long ago, that his original intention with that still was probably more towards a more industrial use rather than actually as something to drink. But that these distillers kind of took it upon themselves to say, oh, look, we can make this stuff really fast with this. Why don't we just roll with that? Have you heard that same story?

Pádraic (00:18:27):
I, I actually haven't in that sense, but I do know that the Scottish would have been certainly more open to this technology. And and, and there's a number of reasons for that. A will say we would've had 60% of global market share whiskey up until the early 20th century here in Ireland. So global leaders in whiskey production. So there was this I would say almost snobbery or almost pride either, or whichever you want to look at it, but there was a reluctance to do anything apart from what was done traditionally. And I guess when you're in that, you know, sort of fortunate position that, you know, Hey, we're making the best whiskey in the world, or we are the global leaders in terms of sales, why would you consider even changing it? So I think that lack of openness was actually detrimental.

Pádraic (00:19:19):
Now, there was a lot of other factors you know, in, in the, in, in why Irish whiskey declined so dramatically in the 20th century. And as you all know, I'm sure that we, we did leave the United Kingdom and that it meant we were no longer, we no longer had to trade agreements with the countries. So all of that stuff was unraveled. And we had to start from, from basically from square one. And all those things had to be built up again, the the, the agreements from a trade perspective and, and of course prohibition was hugely detrimental as well to us because the us market was one of our best markets.

Drew (00:19:59):
Well, I'd also heard that Joe Kennedy had actually come to the Irish whiskey industry first when he was trying to do his bootlegging and they, they refused to work with him. So he went to Scotland and that kind of helped Scotland keep sending their supplies out. Whereas Ireland kind of got the short end of the stick on that. And prohibition didn't help either with Irish whiskey, because it had such a great reputation that whenever the bootleggers were trying to pawn off their rock whiskey, they would throw Irish whiskey on it because they knew it could sell.

Pádraic (00:20:36):
Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. What all of this was detrimental to Irish whiskey.

Drew (00:20:41):
Yeah. So getting back to the world of Patin, let's talk about the ingredients, because we would say if it's the same as whiskey in many respects, you would think that they were using the same types of grains. But what's interesting is that I heard all sorts of different things that were used to distill Poitin, which with moonshine in the us, they, they would use sugar for making sugar shine things to speed up the process. So what kind of ingredients would tend to find their way into Poitin?

Pádraic (00:21:25):
Well, originally Poitin, or as we would call it <inaudible> which again, later became whiskey. I mean, it actually started out as imported wine plus botanicals were being distilled later then of course because of various bad yields during the middle ages we shifted from using imported wine to actually using locally grown cereals, because of course we could make beer from those which was already being done. And so it's the grain tradition originally. And the, the dominant grain would be barely followed by oats, followed by wheat, followed by rye in that order, in that proportion now distillers understood the, the basic principle that you had to malt, you know, your cereals so that you could get the enzymes in those cereals to turn starches into sugars. So that was really important. So basically most of the cereals used for Poitin making, as we know it would've been malted, whether you're using barely old, sweet or rye, they would've been malted.

Pádraic (00:22:30):
And later of course in whiskey, there was the use of unmalted cereals. Okay. But we can, we can get to that topic there in a, in a moment, but yeah, I suppose cereals would've been the dominant one now was sugar used in, in Poitin. It was certainly in, in latter years. But to, to be honest, I think it's it's a shortcut. And is it in the nature in traditional of Poitin making? I wouldn't say so. In the more traditional form, did people do it? Yes. did it make good spirit? Yes. But is it as good as spirit made exclusively from grain? No. The one I actually have a bit more of a, how would I put more of an issue with would be the notion that Poitin was traditionally a potato based spirit, and really there's a number of reasons why potatoes are not, and were not the dominant ingredient in making Poitin.

Pádraic (00:23:28):
So don't get me wrong. We love potatoes here. I certainly love them and people can probably see as well that I do enjoy them. So what I will say about the potato, they didn't arrive in Ireland until the 16th century. And whereas we've been making Aqua Vita since the 12th century. Okay. So I think there's a gap there historically now let's even leave history aside and deal with science because you know, and even intuition, so we can malt grains so that we can turn starches in the, in, in the grains, into sugars. We don't have that same ability with potatoes. So if anyone was to be using potatoes and they're well welcome to do so they would rely on enzymes from the likes of malt to do their conversions.

Drew (00:24:16):
I've heard way being used. I've heard sugar beets being used. Have you heard these also?

Pádraic (00:24:22):
Yeah. So I'm, I'm very sort of how would I put it diplomatic normally, but I'm, I'm gonna tell you that that way is absolutely not under any circumstances was that used historically? So I won't use my French today and what I, I, I mean less than polite language, but just way is way outta line. Okay. the other one then was there another one

Drew (00:24:48):
Mentioned, oh, sugar beets,

Pádraic (00:24:50):
Sugar beets. I mean, look yes. They were used. Absolutely. And, and again, I'm, you'd see there's a, there's a reason why sugar beets would've worked okay because of their, their sugar content. But again, if we go back, you know, to the sort of proper historical sort of and, and, and let's, let's call it, I mean, traditions become traditions because they're carried out over a certain period of time. But what I want to sort of just to be precise on this, the window within history in which potatoes were used was very small. And the frequency of its use is very small, too. The same would apply with sugar beets. Okay. So what I'm just trying to paint here is the picture that it's a very small and insignificant piece of the Puty tradition, just so that we're clear, I'm not dismissing them, but I am dismissing way yeah. For, for a variety of reasons, because the technologies did not exist to do that. Okay.

Drew (00:25:49):
Yeah. So one of the other things that I hear a lot here about moon shine is that there, there's not a legal definition for moon shine. And the idea that some people will say is that there really should not be a legal definition for moon shine because moon shine wasn't legal. And so why would you come up with legal rules and, and regulations. But I look at poten and I say, you have something that is unique to Ireland, and that has its own tradition. And so where do you fall in the of course you're making it and you're making it legally where do you fall in terms of the creating of rules for it and trying to get a, a GI designation for it?

Pádraic (00:26:44):
So, first of all, Poitin is a protective spirit. It does have a GI designation. So it is geographically indicated, must be made on the island Ireland and must follow specific rules and regulations as far as it comes to you know, Poitin making. And again, just to give a bit of context here there is a technical committee which has recently been formed on the put team for the Poitin category and Nora mentioning as well that I was appointed the chairman of that particular group. But nonetheless, why would we have a technical file? And do I agree with it? I absolutely do agree with it because, and you know what, we don't need rules generally, but the time when rules become sort of required or when do they, when are they needed, they're needed, I suppose, to give boundaries to those who will say, don't know where the line exists.

Pádraic (00:27:46):
And it's an unfortunate part that I suppose some people don't understand sort of the where that line is. And of course some people dance very sort of eloquently and, and, and well on that line, others just missed the line completely. And I think it's more for those who would miss the line completely and would go way off in terms of what was done or what was not done in Poitin. What I would like to say though, is that I think it's important that there is a technical file and there is, and this is more to give sort of a steer for people in terms of what is sort of natural and traditional for PUI making and still allowing a degree of innovation. So what you don't want is a technical file or rules that overly curtail how the category can evolve.

Pádraic (00:28:36):
It's really just to provide sort of, if you like a funnel that we all almost kind of sort of you know, put our, I suppose, our collective processing through. So for instance, you know, let, let me take a couple of examples out of the technical file and it, it actually makes pretty good sense. So are you allowed to use potatoes for making Poitin you are, but they're in a adjunct ingredient makes sense, because historically, and from a scientific perspective, you couldn't use potatoes exclusively because the enzymes to do that weren't available. So from a nature and a traditional perspective, it ticks that box, you know, and from a, in the how I put it in the essence and in the wording of it, it allows innovation without sort of jumping way outside the boundaries of what Poitin is.

Pádraic (00:29:24):
The other one, which is quite reasonable is that botanicals are permitted and these botanical infusions were practiced. So what's permitted and we don't even how would I put it? So there's two, two sort of components to it we're allowed to use botanicals provided they're either native or traditional. So that sort of allows people who would've always traditionally used. We we'll call it native botanicals, brilliant, but what if botanicals were being imported? And as, as we know, there was a strong tradition of importing and trade in Ireland with Latin Europe. So that meant that there were goods landing that weren't maybe grown in Ireland, but they were traditional. So either it ticks the traditional box or it tick ticks the native box. And I think that's perfectly reasonable. So for instance, was it traditional for, you know, I'm going to like pick lemon grass out here for that to be used in the flavoring of Poitin?

Pádraic (00:30:20):
No. Is the, the simple answer because it, it just wasn't being imported at the time, you know, or even up until recently. So I think we do need sort of boundaries of sorts. Yes, it was illicit, but we have to remember the reason it was illicit. It was because the British authorities originally couldn't collect taxes on it. Secondly, they didn't want any competition between this domestically distilled spirit versus the commercially distilled spirit. So anyway hopefully that gives a bit of insight in terms of our thoughts on it and why we think the technical file is a good thing.

Drew (00:30:55):
So talk about aging because I, I think aging is, is out, but you can actually put it into a barrel for some time.

Pádraic (00:31:03):
Yes, correct. So at the moment Poitin is permitted to be stored in a CAS for a, up to 10 weeks. We're not allowed to use the term aged. We're not allowed to use terms such as CAS or barrel. And so we are actually having a, you know, a a very sort of collegiate discussion about this at the moment within the within the technical committee. And thankfully you know, pretty much everybody there, I would say in fact, I can actually say everybody there wants to protect the interests of, of Irish Poitin you know, allowing innovation, but keeping it within sort of some sort of defined boundaries. So in terms of CAS aging, I mean, there's, there's stuff like, you know, should we be allowed to say that this has spent time in a CAS?

Pádraic (00:31:57):
Yes. at the moment the wording is a little bit clumsy. I don't think it was intentionally worded sort of to make it ambiguous, but yeah, you're only allowed to say stored in wood. So for instance I, I think it would be a logical thing to be able to say that this thing has been stored in a CAS or in a barrel. And, and again, should we allow Poitin to sort of be aged for longer periods than was traditionally practiced? I would say the answer is probably no there, because Poitin was traditionally left in casks for short periods. And those, those short periods were defined by each distiller. I mean, they would literally make the spirit and then shortly afterwards would sell it, but would they have left for instance, let, let let's put it this way.

Pádraic (00:32:46):
Would they have left the spirit and cask for three years? No. So it's, it's it's definitely short periods. I think the, the 10 week sort of window there is, is a, is a pretty good mark for the moment will that extend, you know, possibly but everybody would need to be on, on the same page or we would have to reach, you know, consensus on it. So my thoughts is it protected, it's sort of puts a bit of a boundary between whiskey and putzing. Some of the wording would probably change to make it clearer for the consumer. So I think anything that makes it clearer for the consumer is better.

Drew (00:33:26):
Would there be any restrictions to the size of the vessel it goes into

Pádraic (00:33:31):
I would say that would be, you know, reasonable that because Poitin distilling was illicit and from a practical perspective, the casks that they were using were generally smaller, I would say that some sort of size restriction would be appropriate. So for instance, I don't believe, and I've never heard of it, you know, from my grandfather or, or any of and he had certainly hadn't heard it from any of his you know, grandfather or father, whatnot about the use of large CAS for the movement of Poitin, generally speaking, they were smaller. And that was E you know, for ease of movement and hiding, et cetera, you know? So from practical perspective, I think it would be reasonable for them to be smaller rather than bigger.

Drew (00:34:17):
It's hard to document a legacy of something that was illicit. But you know, when we think of different spirits and, you know, Scotland has five regions for whiskey and those five regions had personalities, they've now started crossing the line and you you're getting peed stuff outta space side, and you're getting a lot of Sherry finished whiskeys in Iowa and that sort of thing. So there's, there's a mixing of, of traditions, but in Ireland with Patin, was there a were there regional differences probably that we know of?

Pádraic (00:34:56):
Yeah, definitely. And just in terms of I know that people might ask I mean, what do you refer to in terms of Poitin traditions? I mean, what are the resources that we have to sort of help us define these, these boundaries? And so in Ireland, the oral culture was highly respected. I believe it still is. Obviously the written word has one, let's be honest about it, the upper hand when it comes to which, which one is you know, more kind of recognized when it comes to law or evidence, and it's the written word, however, a strong oral tradition existed now. Thankfully a lot of the oral information was documented. So now it's, it's actually in writing. So and of course, you know, somebody has to, has to write it. So we do have a huge depth of resources there that were both handwritten or recorded sort of using various devices.

Pádraic (00:35:59):
You know, when the oral culture was still much stronger in Ireland. So those resources are, are available to us in terms of what, you know, people did of course speak about Poitin. They wouldn't have left themselves open to getting you know, arrested or whatnot. But I mean, <laugh>, thankfully those resources are available. Even my own grandfather recognized the change happening. And he actually wrote a book. So there's actually material for several books, which has not been published yet, but it was unusual for someone coming from the oral tradition to, to write a book. But thankfully there was a lot of people who encouraged him so humility would've been a strong trait of that generation. So anyway, sorry, coming back here to the sort of the, the question that was actually asked and the, the, the question was just remind me again, of where, where we're going on the

Drew (00:36:53):
The region. So like, if we talk about your grandfather, where we would he have called what he was making KMA style

Pádraic (00:37:03):
It was implicit that it was KMA style. So I suppose, throughout the country I mean the early Poitin and even early whiskey traditions, because coal was not being imported until, I guess industrialization became a thing sort of, you know, in, in, in England and whatnot. So I suppose anthro side coal was being imported when it became cheaper to do so than using locally sourced turf. So the local turf was a factor there in terms of where did the peat come from? So Pete would've certainly been a, a stronger would've been a huge kind of differentiating factor for us here in Galway, in Komara that Pete would've been sort of sweet and den rather than I suppose what people would associate maybe with some Isla whiskeys off the west coast to Scotland, which some of them are kind of more medicinal, more Brighty.

Pádraic (00:38:03):
So that would be sort of one of the things now, regionality also came in the form of which cereal types were used now nationwide. We can sort of say that barely was the king of cereals in making whiskey regionality came into it then with the adjunct cereals, your oats, wheat and rye. So oats was really prevalent around K and the reason for that was our soils in, in K just not, not putting it all under the one category, but by and large, the, the, the soils wouldn't have been as fertile, we'll say, or as productive, we'll say, as soils in the south and east. So oats was a stronger serial you know, a more prevalent serial type there in that region. So that's one thing to note that K based spirits would've contained higher proportions of oats.

Pádraic (00:38:57):
Now that's not to say that oats weren't used in other regions, but there was a valid reason why oats were more prevalent. Ry was traditionally grown in areas all along the west coast and in other areas, but rye would've been quite resilient to sort of salt air, to more acidic soils. So that was also widely grown. Now the barely was quite resilient as well, but it did require a more fertile soil than the likes of rye or oats, and then wheat. So for instance, wheat wouldn't have been as widely grown in the west as it would've been grown in the east because it was quite a demanding crop on soils. So you'll find more use of wheat in the likes of the south and east than you would've along the west coast for, for the sort of the basic reason of soil types and fertility and productivity.

Drew (00:39:53):
And it goes back to you use what you have available on hand. Exactly,

Pádraic (00:39:57):
Exactly, exactly. Also just a trend or a sort of a geographical thing. The regionality. So just to be brutally honest Poitin making, would've taken place more, the further west Jugo and the further north ego, the more prevalent it was because these were the sort of more sparsely populated regions and also had more remote locations, which was perfect for distilling illicitly. I, I would suggest that the closer you got to the UK and to the sort of the commercial centers of, of Ireland. So the, the bigger cities, the closer you were to the law and basically the further way you got from the cities or from sort of let let's call it greater densities of population, the, the the closer you were to the, to the law. So from, from that perspective yeah, more of a west and Northern Irish product, rather than a south and Eastern sort of tradition. Now, of course you have pockets like west co, but that's quite remote as well. You see it it's kept away from the likes of cork city and up to Cera, which is close to Galway city, but remote in the grand scheme of things, you know?

Drew (00:41:17):
Yeah. It's amazing to me, maybe not so much, cuz I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina, so we heard, you know, if you needed moon shine, you could, you could find somebody who could get you some, some moon shine and it's fun to drive around Ireland, talk to distillers and hear them also say, yeah, I mean, I know people I could go to, if I needed to go get some some pet, some petite cuz it's, it's everywhere still to this day. So when you were talking with your, your grandfather, did he have did he have stories of, of some, some crazy situations maybe that he got into or that he heard from other people in, in the world of illicit distilling?

Pádraic (00:42:03):
Plenty. so I think one of the most unusual, well, I'll tell you kind of maybe two stories. One of them involved nickel himself. So nickel would've is still widely regarded in local folklore and on one occasion he was raided in his in his home by three or I see constables. So this was before the establishment of the Republic of Ireland. So we were still under British rule, but anyway they raided his house, they found nothing. And then literally there was no other houses really within, I would say two, three miles of nickel's home. And the, if you went north of that house, there was nothing like for, I'd say 12 miles in a, in a, in a complete circle. So quite a vast open sort of area. And a lot of this area would've been common edge, so common edge, meaning you had several shareholders and, and most of this land would've been used for the grazing of cattle and sheep.

Pádraic (00:43:06):
But it was perfect for a distilling Poitin as well, because if your still was confiscated there was legal ambiguity over ownership because the plot of land would've been owned collectively by the shareholders. So nobody could claim, you know, that's my piece and that's your piece because it was all collectively owned. Now, anyway, these three RAC constables went looking for stills and you know, it doesn't really happen today, but one of them, he became suddenly quite ill. And what happened to me see was the he there's this condition which is called she Garo or FOD and or for Dean Mera and in the absence of a precise translation, it's essentially both of them would be sort of how to put it disorientation out of malnutrition or mm-hmm, <affirmative> sort of as that, that type of thing.

Pádraic (00:43:58):
But anyway, one of them got quite suddenly sick and weak and he collapsed and the other two constables then were waiting for him, hoping he would sort of recover and you know, they tried water with them and whatnot. It didn't work. So they then went to get some help because they, they didn't really know what the cure was. So they went to nickel's house, which was the nearest house and they didn't intentionally go for his house, but it was the closest one. It was getting dark at this point as well. And basically they explained to nickel what had happened and he actually very kindly gave them the cure for it, which was simply what we probably called today, like porridge or that either milled corn. So in the Irish language called min, we, which is literally a fine it's, it's almost like a flower, but a quar or flour made out of cereal.

Pádraic (00:44:54):
And what you would do is you'd wet it. So he said to them, okay, this is the cure for, for his ailment. What you need to do is wet it before you feed, feed it to him. And he also explicitly said if you don't wet it, there is a risk of suffocation. So the two constables took off with the cure and they they found their, their third Constable again, still in the same place. Hadn't done much kind of gains and they fed him the the mill cereal, but they forgot to wet it. So a bad story turned into a worse story. They accidentally choked the guy because he, he just suffocated basically on the corn. So anyway, they had to try and carry him in, in the dark of night back to a safe place for them to spend the night.

Pádraic (00:45:46):
But they were unused to the, the terrain at day or at night. So they were kind of falling into bug holes and whatnot, and they decided for their own safety to leave the body and to make their own way to safety. And basically they landed back once more to nickel's house and this in the middle of the night. And he knew that something disastrous had happened, they explained what had happened. And he said, where's the body. And they said, we had to abandon the body. And he said, well he said, well, we can't leave the body out there. So what he did was see, he asked them and they went with them. He asked them to describe as best as they could the location. So anyway, he went off with them and they figured out where the, the man was.

Pádraic (00:46:31):
And he nickel carried back the the dead policeman himself. And that night they had a wake in nickel's house. And so the next morning the next day, rather the district inspector the superior officer came to his house and he thanked him for looking after his constables despite the, what do you call it? The, the previous visit that day. And he said, look we've been trying to sort of catch you on the likes of you but we've never been successful, but now he said, we don't intend on being successful in catching you, making your spirit. And he said, basically why don't you not worry about us anymore in, in a, in a very sort of how to put it you know, implicit way was said, basically keep making your put in. Don't worry about it. What nice. So that was the end of, of the raids for nickel.

Drew (00:47:30):
Wow. It's good to do a good deed here or there,

Pádraic (00:47:33):
There you go. There you go. Yes.

Drew (00:47:36):
Moral of the story, what was, what was the other story?

Pádraic (00:47:39):
<Laugh>? The other story was in 1974, there was a famous local raid. And it happened of course in a place called Inver, which is where we're from now, allegedly when the still was confiscated the police didn't know who it belonged to again because it was found on common edge, that land that has multiple shareholders. So then that night when the still, and the product had been locked up and the local police barracks allegedly the local distiller or distillers decided to recover their equipment by breaking into the station. So there was a break in at the station. The still was taken back, product was taken back. And the next morning there was a huge investigation launched about the crime. The still was never recovered and the culprits were never brought to justice and it became a huge news headline.

Pádraic (00:48:32):
And everybody was sort of interrogated about the events of the evening. But I I guess I'm saying as kind of, as much as I know, I suppose some of the headlines of the time would've read, like there was one of them that was one of the, in one of the national papers, it was raid in reverse, was the headline, what the other ones then was KME Poitin, distillers cheekier than ever. But you know, we have an old, still in our distillery and you know, all distills back then would've looked quite similar, but some people would kind of joke and they'd say, is that it, you know? And obviously, you know, it could very well be it, but of course I'm sure it's not.

Drew (00:49:18):
Yeah. So were you surprised shifting gears here that distilling had not occurred legally in Galway for a hundred years when you guys decided to jump in and start distilling there?

Pádraic (00:49:36):
Very surprised. And you know, I always had a great passion for all things traditional to our culture, and I always knew I'd be doing either something that involved our language or something to do with one of our traditions and Poitin was just such a big part of our family story. It just begged, I suppose, to be continued, but continued, I suppose, evolving into the legitimate sphere. So one day I was actually reading about tequila and there was so many parallels, the parallels of people used to think that tequila is, you know, course and that it was illegal and people were misinformed about what it was made from. I mean, people used to think that tequila was made from cactus. And I was like, there's a strange amount of similarities here, you know, between Poitin and tequila. Yes. We don't make our Poitin from agave, but people think it's made from potatoes, you know? So I thought we have a great story. I know that we make a fantastic spirit but we're not doing it legitimately, so why shouldn't we, why wouldn't we, yeah.

Drew (00:50:45):
And there you go. So was Galway really the place that you felt like was the perfect place to, to go, to, to do this.

Pádraic (00:50:54):
I mean, originally I wanted to start the distillery in Komara, but you know, basically I found out the hard way that planning regulations are quite challenging here in Ireland. Especially if you wanna do something a bit out of the ordinary, but so I applied for planning permission to build well, not even build to change the purpose of a, of a farm building that we had on the family farm, but long story short, spent a ton of money. And we ended up getting refused permission by the national planning authority. So the local council actually did give us permission, but then there's a window where people who are you know, permitted to make how would I put it legal objections to it? So that, that did happen. So anyway that led us down the path and that's the, I suppose the beauty and the, the, the sort of the, the bad side as well to entrepreneurship or, or business ownership.

Pádraic (00:51:51):
It's never straightforward, but you do have to be resilient and you have to be resourceful like the Poitin distillers. So we went for plan B and plan C. So plan B was to find a place that we could distill in, which was already zoned appropriately, or had a brewery in it. So we actually found this place here in salt hill, which used to be the Galway bay brewery. So the guys who found it Galway bay brewery had already built or founded you know, at the next extension of their brewery they were going through massive expansions and they said our old brewery is now idle. But we'd love to see it, you know, full of life again. So that's where we landed.

Drew (00:52:32):
Nice and unique way to get into your distillery because you have to go through a pub.

Pádraic (00:52:38):
You do, and people are almost like, is it still illegal? And it's like, no,

Drew (00:52:42):
It

Pádraic (00:52:42):
Just means that we have to go through a bar. So so yeah, it kind of adds a bit of intrigue to it. It almost kind of adds to the, to the story that you do have to go through the Oslo bar. So it does occasionally get people kind of a bit confused. Yeah. Where are you, you know, and all this kind of stuff, you know,

Drew (00:52:59):
Has, has a whole speakeasy kind of a feel to it.

Pádraic (00:53:01):
It does. It does. It does <laugh>.

Drew (00:53:05):
So was patine really your first thought in doing the distillery or were you ultimately really looking to make whiskey as well?

Pádraic (00:53:16):
Ultimately I consider Poitin and whiskey to sort of be the same thing. Historically obviously whiskey has to be aged in a wooden cask. So for me, when I was setting out to make Poitin it was always gonna be natural progression that we would age, you know, new make spirit. And just to be clear, I don't consider Poitin and Nu make to be exactly the same, of course because whiskey's going into a cask, whereas Poitin doesn't have to, and, and Poitin is gonna be consumed either unaged or left in a CAS for a very short space of time. So just on that piece but no, it was always the intention that we would lay down whiskey in the parliament whiskey sense as well as making Poitin, but as many people have told us since you certainly went about it, the hard way, starting with Poitin, the one that people did not understand, recognize or respect, and you know, I'm glad for it because actually people admired that and they still remember us as being the, sort of the Poitin distillery. So while we're making whiskey and gin and Irish cream Laure, and thankfully we're, we're winning awards and doing very well people still, you know, recognize us as that Poitin distillery. So anybody else, I think, you know, sort of jumping into that sort of space? Yes. I mean, there, there are sort of I mean, they're doing great job for the category, but I think people who still remember us as the, as the Poitin distillers

Drew (00:54:47):
Yeah. Trailblazers,

Pádraic (00:54:50):
Trailblazers, yeah. In a way, in a way, but the trail lazing was done by the former generations to be fair.

Drew (00:54:55):
Yeah. So when did you actually put your first whiskey in a barrel or your first new make into a barrel? I should say officially.

Pádraic (00:55:04):
Yeah. if I'm not mistaken on the exact date, I believe it was Thanksgiving 2020.

Drew (00:55:13):
Okay. So you got a little while before it hits that official mark.

Pádraic (00:55:18):
We do. We do, but we'll certainly announce when we have whiskey that we've laid down that hits three years old. So we, we can't wait, but you know, time flies, it's not that far away. Yeah. Just another one year plus, you know, and we're already at the end of June squarely

Drew (00:55:36):
And it's, it's fascinating to drive across Ireland and have the opportunity to see how many distilleries are really in that same position. They, they are using sourced whiskey now because they have to cuz they want to have a product out to be able to make some money off of before they actually have their own spirit and some wanna wait for three years to release and, and just release it as soon as it comes out, others are saying, no, we definitely want to go to five years or, or longer to release our whiskeys. What you've got a product already out. You've got several products already out. Did you ever think of going the source route?

Pádraic (00:56:21):
We have gone the source route. Now just, just briefly we started with the classic Larish Poitin. We brought out a gin then and the reason we did the gin was because it contains a wildflower, well, several wildflowers and the herbs actually, but our Poitin always had this bug bean botanical in it. So you know, gin was sort of a, if you like a natural progression for us as well, because it's a botanically favorite spirit. So we said, why don't we create a gin that encapsulates Komara? So we did that. It's been a very successful product for us. And then we did the heritage pudding, the petered version. Now we always, as I said, envisioned, laying down whiskey and having our own whiskeys. And we always said before we release any independent bottling as in sourced whiskey that we would have started laying down our own whiskey first, so that people recognize that where our intentions were and that, that, that is that was our intention.

Pádraic (00:57:21):
So we have two independent whiskey bots on the market at the moment, one that encapsulates the Karia tradition and one that encapsulates the Galway city tradition. So we are we're really happy, I suppose, that we have two great traditions to draw from which are distinct, but also have a bit of overlap. So in Komara, we had pet tradition and we had small cast traditions because the Poitin distillers for obvious reasons had to have smaller casks in Galway city. We have the Latin European tradition where they were you know, importing huge amounts of wine and fortified wine and spirits into Galway. And of course that gave the local distilleries. Then this wealth of used casks that they could reuse. So it added a tremendous amount of color and sort of Latin European culture into the whiskeys that we were making. So, and, and also there's actually a small cast tradition in colorway city as well. So these quarter quarter barrels, we call them. So they're 50 litter casks. And funny enough, actually we have a CAS ownership offering, so people can actually buy one of these casks from us if they wanted to. And it's very much sort of echoing what was done, both in Komara and in Galway city. So it's a, it's a nice way for people to get into Galway or KRA whiskey while joining us on the, on the journey.

Drew (00:58:40):
It's interesting as you bring up, cause we really talk about this in terms of the history of, of Galway, but I, I sort of referenced it when you were describing it to me while I was there, as it was kind of like the Liverpool of, or Campbelltown of Ireland, that there was a lot of shipping that came in and there's a really heavy influence of the, the Latin tradition from Europe that's in that area, including names that you will see that kind of traded back and forth.

Pádraic (00:59:12):
Yeah, totally. So for instance, one of the like Galway city is known as the city of tribes and Burke is one of the surnames there. Now that originally came from France. Dego right. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so that's one of the actual tribes names. So that gives you a little picture. I'll just give several examples here that kind of concisely kind of give us an indication as to the sort of trading history between Galway and Latin Europe. So that's the French influence, and then you look at the likes of sort of Madeira island. Okay. Which is an island within GOBA city center only separated by canals and the river. And then you have Spanish parade. You also have Spanish arch and even the genetics. I mean, there's a fascinating documentary done a number of years ago about the Spanish influence here in Galway and Komara.

Pádraic (01:00:03):
And it was absolutely how to put it really kind of interesting and, and, and yeah, about the, the, the amount of Spanish influence in, in the local genetics. So that's, that's really fascinating there. Now you travel to Bordeaux and you look at some of the, the names within some of the shadows and you go to, for instance, a shadow Lynch badge. So Lynch happens to be one of the old Galway tribes, surnames, or second names. So that's where that comes from. So a lot of Irish elite certainly would've they would have immigrated or fled Ireland with the invasion of the British and they found refuge, I guess, in wineries or distilleries. So even one of the biggest global cognac brands is called Hennessy and Hennessy is, is Irish there. So huge amounts of traditions, both in Latin Europe and in Galway or Ireland of the back and forth trade.

Drew (01:01:03):
It's fun to trace all of this and, and see those influences and, and how culture may have changed due to those beings, shipping port like that. And then to see a name like Madeira it's like that is a very unique name to an island that is near Portugal that has its own history yes. In terms of spirits. So it's, it's, it's just fascinating to to see that. And I would not have thought of that with with Galway being an, an outsider, but it only makes sense it's on the it's facing the Atlantic. So it's, it's got easy shipping lanes to get out.

Pádraic (01:01:41):
It does. It does. It does. Yeah. Also where remarkably goods for the smuggling of codes, given that the coastline is very long.

Drew (01:01:49):
Yeah. <Laugh> true. Very true. So let's talk about the styles that you are making in terms of whiskey. Of course. People familiar with my show have been hearing a little bit more about the pot still style of, of whiskey. And so we got a general idea on that, but what's interesting is you are making a pot still and a heritage pot still. So when you call it heritage pot still, what what are you meaning by that?

Pádraic (01:02:16):
So the current, so we, we spoke about the technical file for Poitin. There's also a technical file then that defines what Irish whiskey is and the different styles within that. So you got single malt, single pot, still grain whiskey, and blend, and there's various rules and regulations around what each one is and how they can be made, et cetera, and how they can be labeled. But in the 18th century, the Irish got hit with the malt tax as if we didn't have enough taxes. And the distilleries then recognized that there was a way around this. So this would be tax avoidance, as opposed to tax of Asian. And avoidance is a legal way of not incurring taxes. So anyway they started using unmalted barely as well as the malted barely. And they also used other cereals that were unmalted purely to avoid taxes.

Pádraic (01:03:07):
And in the process they did avoid taxes, but they also created a new style of whiskey, which back then was known as pure pot still now for a variety of reasons, the word pure is no longer permitted on to be written on the bottles. But if you do see some of the old whiskey mirrors, you'll see the word pure pot, the, the terminology, pure pot, still on those today, it's called single pot still. Now the modern equivalent of this is called single pot still and currently, and I'd say currently for a good reason, 5% other cereals may be used. The minimum proportions of barely is 35%. And you must use a minimum of 35% malt. And of course, those familiar with bourbon, obviously they're familiar with, you know, if you're making bourbon and correct me if I'm wrong here, drew, but 51% corn, right.

Pádraic (01:03:56):
Must be used in the mash bill for, for, for bourbon making. So we have similar rules around how you make a single pot still style. Now, historically was the 5% other cereals a true reflection. No. And for that reason, there's been a mature dialogue between all stakeholders in the industry. Thankfully, we have lots of historical documents to show the historical precedence for using a much greater proportion of other serials. So all members of the Irish whiskey association and stakeholders of the industry have agreed amongst themselves that 35% other serials should be permitted. And we have a, we have consensus amongst the members and B, we have the historical evidence to show that this was true. And ultimately the next sort of body that needs to make a decision on this is the department of agriculture.

Pádraic (01:04:52):
And they hold the if you wanna call it the keys to on unlocking this amendment, but I'd be very confident that this amendment will, will go through. So that's the reason for us having the heritage mash bill. Is it recognized today as a as a pot still legally we can't put single pot still on that bottle. That's why we have the, the current version, which is a single pot still. And then the other one then is I I'll basically tell you what the proportions are. It's 40% malt, 35% UN malted, barely 12% odes, 8% wheat and 5% dry, and each cereal giving its own texture, flavor and aroma.

Drew (01:05:33):
Very nice. So the hope is that since you have some time for this to continue aging, that by the time you're ready to release it, hopefully you'll be able to call it what you need to call it. <Laugh>,

Pádraic (01:05:47):
You know, for us, it's kind of a bonus. If we're allowed to call it single potstill, the, the cast customers who've bought these tasks I mean, for them, they're not like worried or, you know, they don't even particularly care whether this becomes like a single pot still, what they're, what they care about is that it's unique and that it's historically relevant. And that's the reason why most people have gone for that particular mash bill. Obviously there's a single malt in the in the equation, which is peed. And that's one thing that makes us really different here in Ireland, because a lot of the Irish risky at the moment that is being laid down is unpeated we we'll take it a step further because we're actually using our own peat that we still cut in KRA on our own family bug that has been crushed for, for generations. So it's, it's amazing to keep that part of the tradition going.

Drew (01:06:38):
I actually literally heard this a couple of times from Irish distillers who a couple of them said, just in casual conversation I would say, would you consider doing a repeated version? And they would go, oh, that's Scotland. You know, and I, and I thought, Ugh, <laugh>, there's, there's a real need to get the history out there and to help people understand that it's not, it's not a, a given that even in Scotland, that they're going to use Pete, that, you know, Pete, no, it's not that before Cole was easily transported around that, Pete, was it, what else were you gonna use?

Pádraic (01:07:21):
Exactly. And it's interesting that some Irish distillers would've said that, I dunno if you're refer to the company or rather you're referring to just Irish distillers, but you know, we, some, sometimes we can be a bit ignorant of our own history, but that is the, the history. So yeah, of course not all scotch whiskey is Peter that's, that's one piece of sort of of information. And the other thing is not how Irish is unpeated.

Drew (01:07:47):
Right. Absolutely. And and not all of it's triple distilled. No,

Pádraic (01:07:53):
Not all triple

Drew (01:07:53):
Distilled. Yeah. I mean that, there's there are these things that I think people are going to learn over time. And I think that's the, the, the question, you know, when I talked to John teling, he said that you know, I asked him point blank because I've heard this from a lot of people that there will be a point when Irish whiskey passes by scotch whiskey and popularity and his reasoning for saying that he believes that to be true. And maybe something that will happen within the next five years or so, is that where Ireland and Scotland were back in the 18 hundreds, where Ireland said, we're sticking tra to tradition, and you had Scotland saying, we are going to innovate that we're in the reverse. Now that iland is saying, Hey, you know what, we are ready to innovate. And Scotland is saying, you know what, we are scotch and we are the best product out there. So we're not worried. Do you feel that history,

Pádraic (01:08:54):
History repeats itself

Drew (01:08:55):
Yeah. In reverse, exactly. Learn from history, right?

Pádraic (01:08:59):
Yeah. It's, that's a, I, I love that line of thought and I, I, I would tend to agree with this. I mean, even in Irish whiskey, we're allowed to use woods that aren't Oak because the technical file states that the whiskey must be aged in a wooden CAS. It doesn't specify Oak so we can use Chestnut cherry Acacia. So look, it, it just leaves that bit of innovation. I mean, most Irish whiskey is still aged in, in Oak without a shadow of a doubt, but new make, but new Oak and, and seasoned Oak, you

Drew (01:09:30):
Know? Yeah. So where do you see where do you see the Irish whiskey industry going? Do you see this innovation continuing and how do you feel like this switch from all of these distilleries using whiskey from great Northern and from from west cork and all of these other sources and then trying to ease their their stocks in, do you and, and, and sort of your own evolution on that as well. You know, how do you think it's going to shift? Do you think that there'll be kind of a, a, a period where Irish whiskey will have to kind of stumble through maybe where the quality drops a little bit and then comes back up again? Or yeah.

Pádraic (01:10:21):
I mean, but yeah, there's a, there's a good bit to that. But my, my general thing, well, my, my hope, my hope would be that all the distilleries that are now laying down their whiskey, I, I really hope, and I haven't tasted, you see a lot of new makes from, from Irish distilleries, but my hope is that they're laying down good quality spirit in, in good wood because it's, it's very important to everyone within this industry that we make good whiskey. So I I'd be hopeful that people are doing that. There will definitely be a transition, whether it's a smooth one or a Rocky one, I don't know people going from independent bottling to their own whiskeys. But I mean, those who've done, the transition have done so successfully as far as I can see.

Pádraic (01:11:12):
And you know, I'd be very confident that we'll make that transition successfully and smoothly as well. Yeah. you know, the, the whiskey that we're laying down ourselves is quite distinct from what we're able to make in terms of or do with, with the independent independently sourced whiskey. So I actually genuinely believe, I suppose that you know, that it won't be smooth for everyone just being candid about it. But I, I, I do think for the most part that we will represent Irish whiskey very well.

Drew (01:11:47):
I, I have to tell you this cuz I haven't, I haven't told you this to this point, but there was something that happened when I was at your distillery. I tend to take little mini bottles with me when I go into distilleries. So that in case when I'm doing a tasting of something, you know, I'm driving a lot, so I don't want to be drinking and driving. So I know, so I'll do my little sample. So I poured some some of the sample into a little Bush mills. I had gotten it, the Bushmills a little mini Bushmills bottle. And when I got towards the end of my trip and I was in Dublin and I was looking at all these mini bottles, I had, I, I had one night where I said, okay, I'm just gonna go through and I'm gonna taste these and I'm gonna do tasting notes on them.

Drew (01:12:33):
And then, you know, and every single one of them was marked, except for this Bushmills one. It didn't have anything written on it. And I went and I sipped on it and I went, wow, this stuff is really good. I was writing now all these different notes and I'm like, and I, and I hate it because I don't know where I got it from <laugh> but when I went back and I looked through my notes, I had written that while I was at Miel, I had put some whiskey into a into a Bushmills bottle. So that was I

Pádraic (01:13:06):
Remember that by the

Drew (01:13:07):
Way, that was your spirit. And I'm like, wow, this stuff is really, really good cuz I enjoyed it while I was there. But the hard part about being on site with somebody and doing a tasting is that you're your attention is in multiple places, all stuff you're, you're talking to somebody you're trying to think, okay. I gotta, you know, when, when am I leaving here? And you know, all these little things are going through your mind at the end of a, a visit. And so so I, I sort of had my attention on it while I was there, but it was great when I got to taste that. And then just that light bulb moment that, oh yeah, that is where I, I got that from.

Pádraic (01:13:45):
Well, I'm delighted that you found it so

Drew (01:13:46):
Good. Yes, it was. And it was in the small barrels, the quarter cast that's right.

Pádraic (01:13:53):
So literally we, we have four little CAS in our CA owners office and when people come to select a task from us we use those maybe as a, as a tool to help them sort of appreciate, well, this new make can go this direction. This new make can go that direction. This is how ex BBO influences this. This is how PX influences that. And it's just a nice little tool for people to gain an understanding. I think a lot of distilleries wouldn't necessarily be you know confident or, you know, some of them might be afraid of giving customers samples of new make, because it is an aggressive spirit and it's not representative of how it's gonna be at the end. But I, I think it's great for them to see what is the blank canvas like and what does the cast then do to that blank canvas. Yeah.

Drew (01:14:46):
So where is Miel available at this point? Is it mostly in Europe? Is it in Ireland? Is it is there ever a chance it's coming to the United States or is it in the United States?

Pádraic (01:14:59):
It's not in the United States at the moment. Unfortunately however, we are working diligently towards that. So within the European union pretty much anybody can order online from our website. So, so that would be kind of the two options, but Ireland we are widely distributed. We have a bit of distribution now in the UK. We have some distribution in Germany as well. And I suppose anyone in the German market there that can order online through Irish whiskeys.de but otherwise I suppose some people are managing to find, to get some of our stock shipped not directly from our website to the us, but they might try the likes of Irish malls.com. So that's, that's an option. Sometimes they, they do that. I dunno if they do it all the time, but anyway, it's worth a shot, but my suggestion is to follow us on social media and we will be, or even, you know, sign up to our newsletter. We will inform people of when we're going stateside and the sooner, the better for us.

Drew (01:16:04):
Yeah. And are you back doing tours again?

Pádraic (01:16:07):
Oh, we're flat out doing tours at the moment. Yeah. So we're one of the busiest visitor attractions here in Galway. There's I mean, Galway is just this fantastic destination of you know, with all the great restaurants and bars and the scene reads on the doorstep of Komara, but we're one of those indoor attractions. There aren't a huge amount, but if people are visiting Galway city we certainly say, look, put us on your itinerary, make sure you book in advance because it does get really busy. You know, if you, if you turn up and there's a, there's a tour on, you know, obviously it'll be hard to sort of accommodate, but we we'll do our best, but the best thing is to go to our website in advance.

Drew (01:16:47):
Well, Padraic, I really appreciate you taking the time today and, and talking through, we learned a lot about Poitin. I'm gonna work on my pronunciation and this, this is my whole journey. Now we'll be trying to educate people on different pronunciations for Irish things. Now, cuz I did a video series on on scotch pronunciation. So now we have to get some of these very interesting Irish language terms that are you know, defined for people. So we're not butchering the language

Pádraic (01:17:20):
Well, if you ever need a follow up kind of really short podcast on Irish language, words, or anything feel free to, to, to ask.

Drew (01:17:27):
Fantastic, fantastic pork. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.

Pádraic (01:17:31):
B really appreciate you having me Andrew much appreciate, really enjoyed the conversation and hopefully your listeners will enjoy it as much as we have.

Drew (01:17:40):
And if you wanna learn more about nickel distillery, just head to nickel, distillery.com. That's M I C I L and for show notes, transcripts and links to whiskey, Laura social media, just head to whiskey-laura.com. And if you can't get enough whiskey history, make sure to join us on Facebook on the official whiskey lo community, go behind the scenes, take part community events and make some new whiskey history, loving friends. That's the official whiskey lore community on Facebook. I'm your host, drew Hamish. And until next time cheers and Lova whiskey. LO's a production of travel fuels life LLC.