Ep. 72 - What Do Brown-Forman, Mick Jagger, Bono, and MacBeth have In Common?

Transcript

Drew (00:09):
Welcome to Whiskey Lore, the interviews, I'm your host, Drew Hannush, the Amazon bestselling author of whiskey Lore's travel guide to experiencing Kentucky bourbon. And today we're gonna talk about a castle, a legendary rock concert series and Irish whiskey. All in one episode, my guest is the co-founder of slain Irish whiskey, Alex Conyngham, who also holds the title of Earl of Mount Charles, and is the proprietor of Slane castle. And I recently had a chance to visit Alex during my historic trip around Ireland. And while I was there. Well, I had the pleasure of tasting not only the flagship slain product, but also a deconstruction of the elements that make up that blend. And Alex was serving as my host. And so today we'll chat with him about that. Do a tasting of the special edition bottling of Slane that you may be finding now at your local whiskey shop. And we're gonna hear a whole lot of history about the castle that well, a lot of people in Ireland know about, I wasn't quite so familiar with it, but they know it for something other than whiskey. And we'll talk about that and how Alex and his grandfather and father started a distillery on the site of their historic home. It's my pleasure to welcome Alex Conyngham, Alex, welcome to the show.

Alex (01:37):
Thank you very much, Drew. Good to see you again.

Drew (01:39):
Yeah. Great to see you too. I I tell you, this is the first time on the show. I've had the opportunity to interview not only a owner of a distillery, but the owner of a castle. So how did your family come about owning the Slain castle?

Alex (01:56):
So, yeah, that's been in our family since 1703. So I'm, I'm I guess one and a long liner Cunninghams to inhabit the property. And I live there currently with my wife, Karina and the kids, and I was lucky enough to grow up there. And my grandfather was probably the last one to live in it as a private home. Because although it is very much a privilege to live in this wonderful place. The, the challenges trying to, to pay the bills and, and make ends meet cuz these heritage properties, you know, they, they can be money pits. But they, and they are a labor of love. So the family had to get inventive and, and grandpa lived there as a private home, but he, he was struggling to, to make it work in the seventies. Ireland was, was not unfortunately in a great place both politically and economically cause the troubles and grandpa was farming the land.

Alex (02:50):
And we had fishing on the river boy, which is our water source for the distillery, but that came under under threat for different reasons. And so he was finding it hard, earned harder to, to pay the bills. And my dad got a phone call from him one night late at night in 1976 and said Henry I'm I'm, which is my dad's name. I'm, I'm very sorry, son, but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to sell slain. I just can't make it work anymore. Or you can come home and try and figure out how to make it work. And that's what dad decided to do with my mum. So I was born in London and I shipped over to slain age one year old and, and and dad, then dad and mum had to scratch their hairs and figure out how to keep the show on the road.

Drew (03:30):
Ah, so let's go back a little bit into the history of the castle too. And we'll talk about cuz we've got stuff to talk about from what happened with, with the castle and it's association with music. And we'll also dive in a little bit into whiskey of course, because it's a whiskey podcast, but but let's talk a little bit about the, the history of that property before your grandfather and jump back into how did you end up with titles and how did you end up on that property as, as a family?

Alex (04:05):
So, well, we, we bought the place. So there was a, a kind of a redistribution of land following the, the sort of William Mike campaigns that happened in Ireland. It was, it was a big, it was a, a major European battle in the battle of the boy. And that kind of changed the balance of power not in Ireland not only in Ireland, but, but in Europe. And as a result of that, a lot of lands were confiscated off of families that had been on the wrong side. And then the Slane estate was put up for sale and it was bought taking out a large debt <laugh>, which I like to joke still paying off, but <laugh> and so my ancestor Henry Cotham after in my dad's name, bought the estate in 1703 and we've been here ever since.

Alex (04:53):
And we were up in Donny go in the Northwest of Ireland for about a hundred years before that. So yeah, we've been here since 1703 and at that time, Slane castle was a fortified building decided, you know, designed to defend cuz we're on a beautiful bend in the river boy. So you can see your friends and your enemies coming in both directions. Mm. But by the 1780s, it had stabilized politically and then it was converted into being more of a home and a place of entertainment which is what the building looks like now kind of dates from the 1780s. So it's had an interesting architectural history. Some of Ireland's great and indeed international architects have worked on the building. And in fact, the distillery, which are the old stable yards and grain stores a few hundred meters from the castle, slightly predate the castle remodeling, they date from about 1750s and capability brown, who was Brendan's sort of most famous landscape architect.

Alex (05:50):
He actually designed the main building. There is he only building in Ireland designed by him. So they've got a really rich, colorful history before we, before we get to, I guess, the, the more modern history. And then yes, we do have titles in the family and they came in really through largely military endeavors. We were kind of guns for hire if you like back in the early days. And then the most senior title in the family, which is now held by dad, which is the Mark West Cunningham. He's Henry thei. <Laugh> and yeah,

Drew (06:24):
There's a song about him, isn't there? No, it's, that's, that's another Henry thei.

Alex (06:28):
There's a few he's he's only been married twice and, and, and very happily to IEN and my stepmother. So and so he holds the senior title and that Marcus that came into the family in in the, around the early 18 hundreds. And so technically my title is Earl Mount Charles. And then my son, Rory is the only one who actually holds the name slain. So he's actually Lord slain or Viant slain.

Drew (06:57):
Wow.

Alex (06:57):
Which I was for many years be before my dad, my grandfather sadly passed away.

Drew (07:03):
When did you first hear that you had a title and did you did you want to go out and get a night soup? <Laugh>

Alex (07:10):
No, I guess it was just part of, part of growing up. I mean, I, I, you know, titles, I guess, you know, that, that things of, of our kind of past days, I mean, I I'd just go by Alex. <Laugh> so I think, you know, it's, it's an important part of our history. It's not one that I'd hide away from, but I don't, you know, I wouldn't show it around either because, you know, I think you are what you do and, and, you know, everybody has to, to work their way through life. And, and so that sort of sense of entitlement that's associated with it is, is the wrong way to see it. But it is an important part of our history that is associated with the family and the property. And I guess it's just another dimension to the story.

Drew (07:53):
Well, you actually have a couple of stories that tie back to the British Royal family as well, lady Elizabeth, which was the first Marquis's wife. Yeah,

Alex (08:04):
Yeah. No, well, well remember, so she was she was the first marshes, so the wife were the first marque and Ireland at that time was obviously under Bri British rule. You're going back to the 18 hundreds here, early 18 hundreds and king George, the fourth, who was on the British throne at the time he visited Ireland in 1821 and Mon hadn't come to Ireland for some time. So it was a lot of excitement when he arrived. But his mistres last and most important mistres was, was the first March asked my ancestor lady Elizabeth, and she had the Kings ear and, and probably a few other things besides <laugh> <laugh>. But the joke is that the road to slain was straightened so that you could get to her all the quicker when he did arrive.

Alex (08:53):
But she had a very interesting political agenda and our family basically used that relationship to further their own position and their own political agenda, including her being a, a proponent to Catholic emancipation because Catholics and Protestants didn't didn't have equal rights at that time. And she wasn't a Catholic herself, but she, she she certainly pushed from an agenda to try and get that, that equality rebalanced. So he came and stayed at slain for for four days. They had a kind of a loving and there's a beautiful picture of him that hangs in the ballroom at the castle, which was a gift from him to her. It's probably like a very extravagant selfie of the day. It was a beautiful picture vice to Thomas Lawrence and that hangs in the ballroom

Drew (09:40):
It's amazing to walk in and see this castle. And and, and then know that right next door, we have a distillery as well and how these you know, how one begins the story. The other story really kind of developed off of that because of the issues that were going on in the mid seventies, when you were having issues with finances and your father comes back. And so talk a little bit about that time period and what happened with the, the castle at that point, what he did to, to save it.

Alex (10:19):
Yeah, well, as I say, grandpa had run it very much. He's a private home and dad, you know, and mom came into the, into the, to the fray to try and figure out how to keep your show on the road. And one of the first difficult things dad had to do was to let go of quite a lot of people who were working on the farm. Because I think grandpa in some ways was maybe too nice to do it, but you know, just couldn't pay the wages. And one of the lovely rewarding things about the distillery project is that these farm buildings that were employing the blacksmith and stone masons and carpenters and everything that were on that payroll decades ago, you know, now those buildings house, a distillery, which once again, is employing people in production and there's tour guides. And so it's become a local employer once more.

Alex (11:04):
It has kind of gone full circle, but but back then there was no distillery. So the first thing they did was they opened a restaurant down in the basement and dad was a very colorful head waiter who was known to ride his bike into the restaurant on occasions for, for a bit of entertainment. And my mom was front to house. My godfather was in the kitchen and they worked really hard and they had a lot of fun and that certainly helped to pay some of the bills, but, but the, the, I guess the kind of Maverick breakthrough came in 1981 and 1981 was a particularly difficult year for, for Alan because of the hunger strikes, you know, tensions were very fraught here. And in that climate, dad had a kind of very Maverick idea, you know, he's a child of the sixties and loves his music and rock and roll.

Alex (11:50):
And he'd seen what was happening at a property in the UK called networth. And he noticed walking out the front door of the castle that with the river boy sort of below the house you've got this perfect AMMP theater and directly in front of the, the building, which is its natural bowl. And he had the crazy idea of putting on rock concert in the front garden and the security forces. And everyone thought that this was a, a crazy idea because of the tensions at the time, but he's always believed in the power of music as something that can bring people together. And so he worked with a promoter from from Northern Ireland, another one from Dublin, and they came together and they put on a concert in August, 1981. And I was six years old at the time.

Alex (12:40):
I, I don't remember a huge man. I can remember the crowd pouring in through the front gates. But the headline band was a bank called thin Lizzy who were the biggest Irish rock and roll band at the time. And there was a picture of me, which I got sent actually not too long ago from a local girl who was having a photograph taken with the lead singer Phil in it at front door of the castle. And then the background, there's this little kid in kind of a pair of skinny, but flair jeans, runners on no top on hair, all over the place and getting into spirit things. And that was me age six years old. So it was a, it was a pretty extraordinary kind of start. And that day changed the future of slain forever. And dad proved the critics wrong about 20,000 people arrived.

Alex (13:26):
And it was pretty much an all Irish bill because international acts weren't really coming to Ireland cause it was believe it or not perceived as, as risky. And and it was, it was a great success. They somehow got away with it. They didn't have any money to put the gig on. So it was underwritten by a guy who's known as missed everything. And he was known as missed everything cuz every time there's a problem, he just said, don't worry, Henry, everything's gonna be alright <laugh> and he came, he came from the east end of London and, and nobody asked too too many questions about where the cash came from, but anyway, the deal got done and, and they pulled it off. And then the following year dad set his sights on a big international act, cuz that was the only way to really take slain as a venue to the next level.

Alex (14:13):
And, you know, bearing in mind, there was still, you know, quite a lot of British Irish tension. He managed to pick the most iconic British band of all of, you know, at, at the time. And it was very brave of them to come in fairness as well. So the rolling stones arrived in, in 1982 and, and this time it wasn't 20,000 people. It was 80, over 80,000 people pulled into the front field wow. In the grands of the car. So it was the largest outdoor rock concert ever held in the country at that time. You've gotta remember Ireland was still quite conservative back then. And dad was blamed by everyone from the church to well for corrupting the youth of Ireland and all this. But but you know, people, people love their music and they love rock and roll. And, and so that very firmly put us on the map and sealed as our, our reputation and kind of as, as sort of the birthplace of, of large outdoor, you know, music in this country.

Alex (15:05):
And now we've been doing the gigs for over 40 years, you know, and it's been a colorful history. So although thin Lizzy with a headline for the first show, there was a little known band called U2 who were just starting out. They were actually one of the opening acts at the first show and they then went dad pulled off another deal and they actually managed, they came and lived with us for a while in, in slain castle and recorded a, an amazing album called the unforgettable fire in our dining room. And we were getting Bono's orange juice in the morning and <laugh> and it was so that was in the mid eighties. And and that, that he HADS an extraordinary album.

Drew (15:49):
Did you you've got all of this stuff going on around you and you're getting to, did you get a chance to meet these bands when they were like, did you get a chance to talk to Keith Richards as he was wandering through getting ready for his performance?

Alex (16:06):
Sad, sadly, not that amazing, that amazing gentleman, but yes, I have met any of them over the years and, and dad certainly has as well. And we actually had we had a lovely moment. Our last gig was Metallica in 2019 and we're looking forward to hopefully coming back next year with a show cuz you know, during COVID, it wasn't possible to do large outdoor concerts and we were hoping to be back this year, but we are definitely coming back next year. But I remember meeting Metallica before they went on and LAR Alrich the drama who's, who's very entertaining character anyway. So dad is there, I'm there, my stepmom's there. And he completely ignores dad ignores me and he goes straight to my son, Rory, who I think was maybe 10 years old or something at the time and says now son, you are the one I need to pay attention to here. And you know, you don't, you don't generally ignore dad, but the, the reason for that was, he said, one day I might wanna come back here in my ZMA frame and play in slain and I'm gonna need your permission. <Laugh> so

Drew (17:12):
<Laugh> smart, man. Smart man.

Alex (17:14):
Yeah. Smart man. Thinking about the future, just like us. So so yeah, there's been, there's been lots of good moments over the years and artists love to play here because primarily, I suppose, cuz of the Irish fans. But it is, you know, it's a very special setting with the castle floating above the crowd and the river flowing behind the stage. And dare I say it almost something of a spiritual experience to, to play or to be a fan at slain. And and that's why we've managed to, you know, keep doing them for 40 years and, you know, fair credit to dad for having the vision to, to see that in the first place. And we've had everyone from, you know, Bowie, Springsteen chili peppers, YouTube have done a few shows here, you know, the, the list goes on and long may continue.

Drew (18:02):
Yeah. Well you told a story actually. It was pretty fun about the your grandfather and the appearance of a certain rock star and him, him having to call your your dad to come to the, come to the castle. Can you tell that story? Yeah.

Alex (18:23):
Yeah. Well that was actually that was why dad was able to get to the stones because rumors emerged that they were potentially thinking coming to Ireland and dad some years before cuz MC Ja is a, a big fan of Ireland had got a call from his dad saying, look, I I've got someone coming over to the castle for dinner. Is there any chance you and Julia could come home from London? This guy's in records and I'm not too sure how to relate to him and dads were like, yeah, that sounds interesting. Can you tell me a bit more a name perhaps? And he goes, ah, let me think. I think it's Michael something, Michael Michael jogger <laugh> and dad is like, dad, do you mean Jaggers coming to dinner? And so sure enough it was. And he arrived in and grandpa was in his black tie and and as were his friends and was holding court in the center of the room in a white linen suit. And so that's the first time they actually met each other. And that certainly was, was, was helpful in terms of trying to persuade the stones to come to slain in, in 1982,

Drew (19:30):
When you walked around the house and, and or the castle and you showed the different rooms. You talked about a fire that occurred there. Talk about that and how that affected the, the concerts.

Alex (19:43):
Yeah, well, I mean, it was kind of ironic. So I said the name of the U2 album was unforgetable fire. And then we had a, a flipping real one in, in 1990 one. So it was pretty devastating dad. Wasn't thankfully in the building, the night of the fire, I was away as well. And we had a security guard. The most important thing was nobody was hurt, but it was, it was pretty devastating. It destroyed roughly about a third to a half of the building. We lost a lot of fine artworks. But you know, as dad has kind of taught me, those are just things and life and people at what can, but unfortunately the building wasn't insured because the premiums were just off the charts. And so it was through dads endeavors and the concerts and taking calculated risks that he managed to make enough money to, to rebuild it, but it did take a decade. And we reopened it just in advance of two amazing shows that you two did in 2001. So that was a very emotional gig for dad to see, you know, to be able to open the doors again and let people inside the building. And, and now, you know, currently I'm lucky enough to be both running it as a business, but also living in it as a home mm-hmm

Drew (20:58):
<Affirmative>. And then how did whiskey get into the equation?

Alex (21:03):
Aha. You know, it goes back to, you know, whiskey and music just unnatural kind of BES. They, they go well together and there's a long association between the two, but I mean, there's a number of reasons. Firstly, you know, as a family, certainly myself and dad and my stepmom, you know, we enjoyed Irish whiskey, the, the consuming of it and the stories of it and it's it's our national drink. But I had previously been a whiskey brand ambassador for for an Irish whiskey brand in around 19 nine, 2000. And I guess I'd learned a bit about the category there and, and got interested, but it was, it was fully dad's idea. He was the one that suggested it because he had built up the brand slain through the music, which certainly is very well known in Ireland. But arguably, you know, has a great reputation within the music industry beyond Ireland.

Alex (21:57):
And so we wanted to extend into something else because if live music gather came under threat, we needed another source of income to protect this place for the next generation. And so we were looking at different projects and dad suggested whiskey and it made perfect sense because yes, it goes well with music. Yes, we enjoyed it. But actually one of the things that makes the slain project different is that we are lucky enough to have land. We have 1500 acres and on that we grow cereals including barley and we were growing barley for the animal feed market where you are a price taker. And then we have the opportunity to say, well, look, why are we giving it to the cattle, wanna be a lot more crack to, to turn into whiskey. And that's what we decided to do. It's basically value added farming.

Alex (22:43):
The only thing is you've gotta build a distillery in order to extract the value and that's ultimately where we ended up. And then the river boy is a beautiful water source for making whiskey because it will pick up a bit of minerality as it falls off the land and drains into the river. And that's very important when it comes to fermentation. So, you know, we have the raw materials and then lastly, this beautiful collection of buildings that are right next to the castle, which are the old stable yards and grain stores and workshops, and they are beautiful their date from the 1750s were in part designed by the renowned landscape architect capability brand. They're on the national list of protected structures and they had fallen slightly into disrepair because dad not only had to keep the cast going yet to had to rebuild it.

Alex (23:34):
Mm. So, you know, we didn't have the resources to maintain those buildings and to bring them back to life and link them to the land, through the barley cultivation to make whiskey. And that's ultimately what we've done and we've created whiskey distillery that I'm very proud of. I think it acknowledges the very best of Irish whiskey making tradition, but we, we all do also bring in innovation in our own way. And and it's now fully fledged working DEC distillery, and these buildings now have a new lease of life and we're employing people in the process and, and sending whiskey out around the world.

Drew (24:11):
Nice. So you actually though started sourcing your whiskey, which is interesting, cuz you know, as you go through Ireland and you see the industry and how it's emerging right now, you guys really had quite the jump on where a lot of these new distilleries are, who many of them have decided to first start in the world of sourcing and getting their whiskey that from established secondary sources and you had actually started out working with John Ting's cooling. We just had John on the show last week. So learned a lot about, about him. And it's really interesting to see how the Irish whiskey industry has gone through stages of recovery from the days when it was Irish distillers and nobody else. And then all of a sudden here comes Cooley and they're starting to bring some old brands back and start to reestablish. And so you guys were kind of on the early side with it, wasn't called slain whiskey at that time. Was it slain castle whiskey? I think,

Alex (25:18):
Yeah, it was, yeah, you're corrected. It was Slane Caston and actually I'm very fond of John teling and I my amongst many other things I did, I did a diploma in entrepreneurial studies and my first business case study was the initial Cooley startup. Wow. So, and that was the case study that they'd been prepared by John teling. So he had he had an early influence on me from a distance. And I've got, got to know him, but over the years, so we did, we approached Cooley in the early days to source the liquid and dad had the idea of starting the whiskey brand and, and we called it slang castle in those days. And we source liquid from them. We didn't have a distillery. We wanted to test whether the brand concept would work.

Alex (26:06):
And grandpa who sadly no longer ran was actually involved in tasting those very first initial blends. We had a wonderful we had a good party here actually where, where I met at the moment and grandpa had a few friends there and, and so did dad. So to myself and we sampled three different blends that we were considering from Cooley. And anyway, we had a good night and we had to figure out the next morning, which was the one that we'd actually chosen. It was very simple. It was the, it was the bottle. It didn't have anything left in it. <Laugh>

Alex (26:35):
Nice amongst a good number of us who had been tasting it. But, but grandpa, that was the one he chose as well. So that was the blend we actually went with. And that continued, we launched in at the Oasis concert in 2009. Oh now if you're gonna launch with rock and roll band like that, that was, that was a good one to go with. Yes. And we, you know, we did, we got some good success in, in the us and UK Ireland. And that continued until about 2012. And at that point the tillings obviously sold the business and slang castle was one of actually quite a few whiskey brands that, that had no choice, but to leave the market because the new buyers decided to, to discontinue supplying and, you know, we were faced with a difficult choice then, which was either we throw in the towel and say, well, that was good, fun.

Alex (27:30):
Or we do what I had actually wanted to do for a while. But dad had kind of very sensibly said, you know, all in good time. And actually when I gave him the good, the news about losing our supply, I said, dad, there's good news. And there's bad news. And he said, well, hit, hit, hit me with the bad news first. And I said, I'm afraid we've lost our whiskey supply. He said, well, what the hell is the good news then <laugh>? And I said well, it just means we've gotta build our own distillery. And he said, I dunno if that's good news

Speaker 3 (27:58):
<Laugh>.

Alex (28:00):
But, but that's exactly what we then set out to do. Cuz we, we knew we had a brand concept that could work and we were enjoying it apart from anything else working together and, and starting on this whiskey project. So we then said about trying to put together a distillery design and a lot of work went into that and you got a bear in mind that was risky because at that time we didn't have anything to sell. So we were literally from that point, the, the tap was off, but the, the funding tap still needs to be on. So we, we financed as a family, all of the planning permission, the design work, we paid the deposits on the stills package all whilst we had nothing to sell other than a vision, you know, but, but we believed in it and ultimately you know, I'm very grateful to, to the partnership that we ended up with to, to help turn that vision into a reality.

Alex (28:53):
And, and that partnership with brand foreman actually came about largely due to to, to to a very important lunch I had with a guy called Gar brown who has recently stepped down as, as chairman of the board of brand foreman, but he's one of the key family members and what makes brand foreman a little bit different to some of the other drinks companies is that they are still very family driven. And ultimately myself and dad, you know, had a project that was ready to go brand foreman, wanted to get into the Irish whiskey business and had publicly said so so we both, you know, there was, but, but what enabled the deal to get done is actually, you know, dad has taught me, you know, that in order to survive at slain, you always need to think about the next generation and beyond, and, and I will never own it.

Alex (29:42):
I'm just here to look after it for the next lot. And and I think, you know, the brand family think about their whiskey company in the same way and they're great brand builders. So it was really a meeting of mines between myself and Garvin. And then it took obviously a little time to get the eyes dotted and tees crossed on the deal which we did in 2015 and started building the distiller in 2016. So it's and you know, the, the distillery that we designed I, I was worried they were gonna kind of rip up the plans and start again. But actually I was very proud of our team because they effectively took it as red. They made a few minor modifications for energy efficiency improvements and stuff like that. But generally they, they took the design as red and that's what we built. Very nice. So yeah, it's been quite a journey. Well,

Drew (30:33):
It's a challenge too, because being a historic building, you probably have to fit within certain, you, you, you can't be destructive of the property while doing reconstruction on it or trying to figure out how to shoehorn a distillery into these particular buildings.

Alex (30:52):
Yeah. I mean, as I say, they're all on the national list of protected structures and rightfully so, you know, they're important buildings, but so we would've had to use traditional lime plasterers. All of the beams were protected. So we have three copper pot stills at slang for, for triple distillation in our pot, still house and lowering those beams in. It was like, you know, the, the stills in it was like whiskey Teris, you know, we weren't allowed to move the beams and you've been in that still house. I mean, it was, it was a delicate exercise, but I wanted that marriage of old buildings to, to work with the distillery. Now we did have to build some new buildings as well, but wherever we were dealing with the existing fabric, we absolutely, you know, we had to make sure we were doing things correctly, and it was very much a full restoration. And, and I hope, you know, what, what we tried to pull off was that when it was finished, it would look like it was always meant to be there. And, and, and people seem to feel that we've, we've hopefully achieved that it's it, it's a Disturbia with a lot of character.

Drew (31:58):
Yeah. Well, you use the stables in the, in the bar, right? The, yeah. Cause it has that feel. Yeah,

Alex (32:03):
We don't, yeah, we don't, we don't water horses anymore. We just walk water people with

Drew (32:07):
Water, water people.

Alex (32:07):
So we actually, yeah, yeah. We have a funny fledged cocktail bar in in the old stalls, which were the loose boxes for, for the horses where they were groomed and fed and watered. So now we, we do that to people instead of

Drew (32:21):
Cocktail <laugh> and yours is the first distillery that I've been to, you know, after traveling through Kentucky and seeing column stills and column stills, when you walk in the building, you know, they've got a column still in there because the ceilings are extremely high because column stills are not short and, and stout, except in your case, what you did was actually broke the still into three pieces, which was interesting. It's like a, it, the, the whiskey actually goes through like a, a, a w formation to go through the through the system. So how did you guys, cause as I went across Ireland, Ireland, I saw a couple of other examples of that and didn't realize that apparently in in England, they there are some examples of, of stills like that, but I'd never seen that before. How did you guys come up with that design and why? So

Alex (33:14):
It was, it was a challenge. It was a design constraint because there was no way in hell that I could go nine or 10 stories high, which is, as you said, is what you'd normally do. But there was no way I was gonna be allowed to do that, that close to a national monument Slane castle and within an architectural conservation area. So we actually worked with a Scottish engineering firm who helped us to design a process where the analyzed and racked fire, which your two normal columns for distillation each of those been split into three. So we actually have six columns in our column stills. Okay. and not only that, I also put a design constraint on the project, which was quite a lot of Irish grain whiskey tends to be made from from, from maze which isn't grown in Ireland.

Alex (34:04):
Cause we don't have the right climate for, for growing that type. I wanted to use Irish grown cereal. So I insisted on something that would be able to process a combination of malted barley, and unmalted barley a little like a pot still mash mm-hmm <affirmative> which we actually run through column stills, which technically because of the gels nature of and, and breaking the SAR. It's, it's, it's a tricky one to get it, to work through the columns, but ultimately that's what we managed to pull off with the support of the design team that we had at the time. And the Scottish engineering firm and the Scottish distiller who, who is involved in the project at that time. So it it's an unusual, I, as far as I know, were the only people making a grain whiskey like it in Ireland and the new make that's coming off. It has a lot of character it's. It's got some of that kind of creaminess and, and spiciness that you would perhaps find in, in more of a pot still mm-hmm <affirmative> new make. So I think it's gonna make a really interesting single grain whiskey for the future.

Drew (35:07):
And this is something that again, as I've traveled through Ireland, it's like, I feel like I have the, in insight now into where Irish, whiskey's probably going to be in the next three to four years, but right now the stuff that's on the shelf is still liquid. That's been sourced from somewhere else. Is that that's correct, right? Yeah.

Alex (35:29):
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was a bit like when we started, you know, with Keely if we had, you know, we didn't start distilling, so we started building in 2016, we didn't actually start distilling until summer of 2018. And, you know, yes. You know, if there's one thing you need in the whiskey business, it's patience, but we did need to get the brand up and running. So we actually did source some liquid way back in 2015, when we did the deal with brown Fullman. Now we could have just put that out to market. We actually bought some good quality grain and malt all whiskey. So it had all been matured in American wood range of different ages. And it was good juice. We could have produced a blend back in possibly 15 or 2016, but we didn't do that. We wanted to put our own stamp on it.

Alex (36:20):
And the only way really that we could change what we had purchased was to do some additional maturation, which we did. So we, we took that molten grain whiskey and we split it between three different barrels and we did an extended secondary maturation. And that's why we call Slane to triple cast whiskey, cuz it was done simultaneously and separately in three different barrels to add character and flavor. And then we bring those three different barrels back together again, and that, and that's, that's what the core blend is. And then as our own dis distillates come up sort of when they're ripe, so to speak when they reach maturation to the level that we feel is, is satisfactory, we will start phasing that into the blend. So over time whiskeys made by ourselves fully made ourselves will start to substitute what we sourced from others, but it's not gonna happen overnight because you've got whiskey at different ages. So it's something that we need to handle very carefully over time. But my hope and expectation is that the quality of the blend, if anything, will, will improve because now we have control over the whole production chain.

Drew (37:31):
Yeah. And this is the thing that I don't think people realize because really the only big example of single pot still whiskey and this UN malted and malted barley that's coming into the United States is is red breast. And to me the, the stuff that I was tasting while I was crossing the, the island was amazing that I said, people have no idea how flavorful this really is. I mean, red breast has a great reputation, but I sense that this unmalted barley and malted barley is probably gonna become a iconic part of what Irish whiskey is because it's such a pleasing character for a whiskey that it creates

Alex (38:16):
It. It is. And and you are correct. I mean, you know, it is, I guess very much dominated by red breast, which, which in fairness is set the bar very high it's it's great whiskey. And I think the pot still category is going to become really exciting over the next decade or so. And ultimately, you know, cur should perhaps become the, the scotch answer, you know, the Irish answer to scotch single malt category. I think, you know, it is the native style of Irish whiskey. And the unmalted valley definitely brings in additional complexity lovely kind of creamy math fields. And you just got this lovely natural spiciness to it. And then you throw good wood in on top of that, and you're gonna end up with some seriously good whiskeys and I've been lucky enough. We just had the whiskey live event here in Dublin not too long ago at which there are now over 40 distilleries in this country. And I have the opportunity to taste quite a few of the new makes that are going on. And I'm super excited about where this category's going. I think it's, it's only gonna get bigger and it's gonna get better. The crucial thing is that the standard stays high and I think everyone in the industry is very determined to do that.

Drew (39:33):
Yeah. So with when I was came to visit we had a chance to sit down and do a deconstruction of your whiskeys, which I think is fascinating because what it did was it really helped me see the personality of the three different liquids along with the three different types of tasks that you're putting those, those liquids in to be able to come up with this blend, where, where did you get this idea of of the threes and, and, and while we're talking about this maybe you can work into it your family crest as well, which is right there on the bottle and how that kind of plays into it. Cuz like I say, there there's a lot of threes involved in this whiskey,

Alex (40:21):
Right? Yeah. The, the, the power of three. Yeah, I mean, when we decided that we wanted to add complexity and, and agreed that, you know, let's stay out of the market and let's do more maturation before we jump in knowing that we were sourcing whiskey from someone else. So we started thinking about what barrels we could use for that. And one of the very considerable benefits of being part of brand foreman now is that we get access to their cooperages. And I was like a kid in the candy store cuz suddenly there were all of these toys to play with. And one barrel that was an obvious place to start was, was Virgin American Oak, which of course is how American whiskey is made. And they're not so commonly used in, in Irish because they're, they're expensive to buy. And generally we tend to use, you know, secondhand barrels from America, not, not Virgin Oak but cause brown foreman had that cooperage.

Alex (41:17):
We were able to take a customized barrel from that with a really, really heavy toast to it. And what that does is it delivers obviously plenty of color cuz it's new wood. But, and more importantly, the slow toasting of the wood and, and lo you know, very deep toast, mm-hmm, <affirmative> really caramelized as those wood sugars and it just pumps up the Vains and the associated vanilla notes and the whiskey. And just, it, it does pull slain apart a little bit from other blends for that reason. And that was deliberate. And you then get this lovely kind of toasted Oak note on, on the finish as well. So that was an obvious place to start. And then, you know, brown foreman as a, as a company, they make a hell of a lot of whiskey which means they have a lot of barrels that they can't reuse.

Alex (42:04):
And they obviously then sell those into the industry Ireland, Scotland but other industries like rum and they end up all over the place and now their general barrel barrel inventory would take, you know, brown foreman make Woodford and Jack Daniels and lots of other great whiskey brands. And if you buy barrels and brand foreman, you tend to buy from their general inventory. We recognize actually it'd be a lot more interesting to focus on just one particular whiskey. And that is the Tennessee whiskey or the Jack Daniels. And that's predominantly the, the seasoned barrel or second barrel of choice. And that allowed us to deepen the sweet notes and slain and slain does have a lovely kind of natural brown sugar, Dara sugar hit to it. And then the Jack Daniels barrel is heavily charred that char helps to mellow out the whiskey. So you get a nice kind of mid mouth feel off it.

Alex (42:57):
And then there's this I'm, I'm a big fan of bananas and I, I love the banana note that you find in Jack and I think it's carried over beautifully and slain. So we had two American barrels. Yeah. Now there was a little bit of tussle over the third one because I didn't want to use an American one. Even though Brian Foreman had suggested, you know, if we were gonna do something, it would, it would make sense. And economically yes, I, I would agree, but I think we would've ended up with an Irish blend that just tasted too, like an American whiskey. So grandpa, you know, he was the one who introduced me to drinking Irish whiskey maybe a little bit sooner than he should have <laugh>, but that's another story. And he loved his Irish whiskeys that had a Sherry cos influence and does a long association between Sherry and, and Irish whiskey.

Alex (43:44):
And so that's where we decided to explore for the third one. And I had to convince Brian Foreman to do that. And we actually took some of the malt whiskey that we'd purchased. And you can try this at home. If you have malt whiskey and you have some Sherry, if you actually just add a drop or two mm-hmm <affirmative> and then stir that Sherry in it complete changes the profile of the whiskey from a taste point of view. And so that's what I did. And off the back of that little kind of trick, which I did in a room in the castle, I convinced him to come out to her and we ended up buying some fantastic first for Lola Ross. So Sherry casts, and that's what we used for our third barrel. And it's probably the biggest and boldest out of the three. It took a full two years to, to really deliver what we needed, but it, it brings in those dried fruit notes and the lovely kind of baking spice note on the finish. Yeah. So what what's different about slain is these are these three barrels are done separately and only then do we blend them together? Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and that's ultimately what, what slain is, it's a blend of three different whiskeys bought, bought back together.

Drew (44:51):
And so your flagship is basically a whiskey that's made up of certain proportions of each of those barrels. And then the special edition that you did, which will do a tasting on here is actually, you've amped up one of the barrel types. And this isn't the first time you've done this either. So I understand.

Alex (45:17):
Yeah. So that's correct. So what we actually, because we do them separately and we were talking about the, you know, the power of three, right? So if you, and you use the term amped up, which also makes sense if you think of blending whiskey, like being at the music desk. Okay. If you've got three different levels that you can then dial up or dial down, you have so much control and good, good blends, just like good music are all about balance. So it's finding the right balance between the three, which is what we did with the core blend. And and we're very happy and that's here to stay that product, but then we decided that because we'd done it separately, what happened if we were to suddenly turn up the volume on one of the cast a little bit would that change the profile of blend?

Alex (46:02):
Which of course it does. And the special edition came about because the first lane concert was in 1981 and that's 40 years ago in 21 and we are in the middle of pandemic. So we couldn't do a live concert to celebrate our anniversary. And we didn't want the occasion to go on mark for dad or indeed the history of the concert. So we decided that we would basically increase the proportion of Virgin American outcasts in the blend and raise the a B a bit. We took it up from 40 percent 45, so up to 90 proof. And you know, so you've got a little bit there. So I've got one here as well. Very nice. So Slaner so Virgin Oak is effectively, you can see it's got lots of color, but that new Oak is gonna deliver because of the slow toasting is gonna deliver lots of vanilla. So it's got a really kind of nice sweet hit to it, this but the thing that really impresses

Alex (47:09):
On the pallet and it takes a little while to arrive is the big wood hit at the back. Yeah. Yeah. It definitely packs a little bit more of a punch notching up the ABB was necessary cuz to deliver that it's also 45 and that's a, a note obviously to, to the, to the music format, change the music industry. Yeah. but it it's, so I would say it's a little bit more of a fuller version of slain and it delivers it's got just a lovely wood hit on the back of the pallet. Yeah. thanks to, to changing the proportions and this lovely natural sweetness to it as well.

Drew (47:47):
So we, we talked while we were there. I had brought up when I, I noticed at the the banana note and I said, man, I love that in Jack Daniels also. And you know, was that something that you were specifically attracted to in that, because there's so nice fruit notes in this, but it's kind of like that little tropical addition that comes in, but what I, what I love about where you amp up a different type of barrel is that the other characteristics are still there. You still are getting the, the Sherry influence and, and some of the darker fruits from that, but sure. And the banana note is still there, but it's just bringing out the character of that Virgin Oak barrel, as you say, the vanilla comes in there that toastiness comes in, you know, towards the finish.

Drew (48:39):
I get, I get that grain note in there, which I guess is, is probably coming from again the use of that unmalted barley in there. And so it's just interesting to see and to have broken those down and had the opportunity to taste each of those individually, it really did give you the opportunity to see, and actually I fell in love with the Sherry one because I'm a, a Sherry Sherry scotch fan who's now converting over to Irish whiskey. So that, that I'm waiting for that particular bottle to come out when you amp up the Sherry end of things. But

Alex (49:19):
So that, so that one is a travel retail exclusive, is it okay? So we, yeah, yeah. So we basically ramped up the Sherry one as opposed to the Virgin and that brings the dried fruit and the spice to the, to the four. But the key about both of these variations is it's just a slightly different lens. It's still the core, but it's just got a nice spin on it. But the Virgin Oak I think, has worked out particularly well and it just felt a little bit more rock and roll to have that kind of wood bite at the end. Yeah. but it does have the natural, but yeah, you're gonna pick up the other flavor notes as well. And the extra Sherry would which is available currently in Dublin airport, but it will, you know, over time itll, it'll become widely available in travel retail. That's a beautiful rich whiskey. And if you're a Sherry whiskey fan, then that's a good one to pick up.

Drew (50:04):
Yeah. It's just it's fun to see the different variations and you're doing this in a way that nobody else that I know of really is doing it. So, and that's, what's making Irish whiskey so fascinating is that yes, you have 40 plus distilleries coming in, but everybody is doing something a little different. So there's going to be different character to everything that comes out. But let's, let's talk about that logo or, or your crest and how that kind of plays. Yeah.

Alex (50:32):
The, the power of the power of three. So yeah, look, we believe in triple casting, we make three different types of of whiskey at slain being single pot still triple to still malt and then also single grain whiskey. And and we also believe in triple distillation, but as it happens, if you look at the front at the top of each bottle of, of slain, you'll see that there is a crest there. And that crest actually goes back to the 11 hundreds when our family were in Scotland at that time and under the tyranny of McBeth prince Malcolm was on the run and he was he was on the run from McBeth soldiers and he was hidden in, on a farm in a hayloft. And that was that hayloft was allowed him to evade capture from MCBE soldiers mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Alex (51:32):
And as a result he avoided capture, he then raised rebellion, defeated McBeth, and that Mel Malcolm then went back to the guy, had saved his life, rewarded him with some land and then arm to celebrate the occasion. And he used the fork the hay fork, the two prong fork. Yeah. and that's how he evaded capture. And so for us, it's a symbol of perseverance determination, and that's what it took to put on that first rock concert in 1981. And that's what it took to build a whiskey distillery. So we stand by that and that's why it's on the bottle at the top of every bottle,

Drew (52:12):
We call it serendipity. It just all came together. And and, and here we are. So in terms of people coming to visit when they come to Ireland, since everybody's starting to get on the road again and experience things firsthand, can people visit the castle and then talk a little bit about the, the distillery experience.

Alex (52:36):
Yes, absolutely. They can. So Slane is an unusual site in that you can see both a, a castle and a distillery in the same location. And if you, you come at the right time of year, you might even get a gig in as well. <Laugh> so so the distillery and the castle over the summer period are generally open on the weekends. So you can check out slain castle.ie, or slain Irish whiskey.com for the details. So you can come and do a tour of both on site and then you can walk around in the grands as well and see some of the beautiful Irish landscape cuz you know, that, that stunning backdrop with the river boy and our land on both banks of it. And indeed the village of slain is a lovely community to village to visit. And we're at the heart of the Boyne valley, which has got amazing interactions, including the megalithic tombs that are actually older than the Egyptian pyramid. So 5,000 years of history in the Boyne valley. So there's plenty to see and do here.

Drew (53:37):
So if somebody wants to go to the distillery probably best to go online and get reservations.

Alex (53:44):
Absolutely. So yeah, just go to slain Irish whiskey.com and you'll see the you'll see the pictures of the distillery pages are up there and you can book a tour through that platform.

Drew (53:56):
Okay. And is the special edition available everywhere?

Alex (53:59):
It is available at the distillery and it is currently available on a limited, it is a limited edition. So it is available in the us at, at good retailers. It's a little notch up in price from the core brand, but we haven't we haven't sort of gauged it by, by, you know, although it's a collector's addition, it's a, collector's ion at a reasonable price. And it's a little higher as well. Cause of course the alcoholic content is higher, so therefore a little more tax, but so yeah, we'll get that in any good us retailer or you can pick it up at slain to St.

Drew (54:35):
Well, very nice. Well, slain was the first Irish whiskey that I said, wow, I really like that because I, I, I had ignored Irish whiskey for a long time because to me, you know, you, Jameson was Jameson Bushmills was Bushmills and they just weren't quite hitting my pallet the way that I was enjoying from other places. But when I had slain, it was so flavorful, I said, okay, I gotta pay attention to Irish whiskey because things seem to be changing. So thanks for being on the forefront of of the change in, in Irish whiskey.

Alex (55:08):
Well, you know, I, I appreciate that. And if we've managed to get you onto Irish, you know as you've now since learned as a whole category to, to enjoy but if we were the entry point, then I'll, I'll take that. Thank you very much, drew

Drew (55:21):
Fantastic. Well, I wish you the best of luck and look forward to seeing more slain whiskeys showing up on shelf and, and good luck on getting that first release into your blends and, and moving into a hundred percent your own stuff.

Alex (55:37):
Yeah, no, it's gonna be, it's gonna be exciting one to watch not just for ourselves, but watching Irish whiskey over the next decade. It's gonna be gonna be a lot of fun and lots of good whiskeys to enjoy.

Drew (55:46):
Absolutely. Well, Slan

Alex (55:49):
Take care

Drew (55:51):
And thank you again for joining me for another week of Whiskey Lore and for show notes, transcripts and links to Whiskey Lore, social media, just head to whiskey lo.com. And if you love Irish whiskey history, well stay tuned because coming up at the end of this month, I'm gonna have a series on Irish whiskey history. If you can find that on Whiskey Lore stories available wherever you get your favorite podcast, I'm your OS drew Hamish. Thanks again for listening. And until next time, cheers and Solan JVA, whiskey, lores, and production of travel fuels life, LLC.