Oct. 10 - Teeling's Master Distiller Alex Chasko (Online Set)...
Oct. 10 (Monday): Teeling's Master Distiller Alex Chasko
Format: Hybrid Online and In Person (in NYC) event
When: In person starts at 7pm EST, Hybrid starts at 8pm EST
It's no secret that we're huge fans of the Teeling Distillery and everything it represents -- especially the part about them bringing distilling back to Dublin -- Ireland's historic whiskey capital! We last welcomed their master distiller Alex Chasko in person on November 14th, 2017, and while we've had the pleasure of doing a number of events with so many other wonderful members of their team in the interim, it'll be a real honor to welcome Alex back. They've grown a lot since 2017 (and hey, so have we!), so we figured it would be best to make this a hybrid online and in person event so that more of our membership would be able to join. For those joining in person in NYC, the fun will start at 7pm, for those joining online, we'll have a one-hour hybrid session starting at approximately 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern. Then those of us in NYC will retire to the Irish pub Swift for an afterparty.
As luck would have it, we were recently at the Teeling Distillery, where we picked up a number of special distillery exclusives that we'll be able to include in the lineup. We only have one bottle of each, so the headliners will vary slightly:
The Online Set (only) will get a distillery-exclusive 23 year old bottling of a single cask that is either rum cask finished or fully matured in a rum cask (we'll confirm which) 43.3% abv, plus one other bottling (figuring out which). The In Person group will get a 18yo Renaissance bottling in an Australian Shiraz cask, plus a secret bottling that we can't announce in advance of the event -- you'll just have to come in person to find out for yourself, and trust us, you will not want to miss it. So those two expressions will be different between the online and in person kits, and on top of that, everyone will get the following 6 expressions to taste:
Teeling 2022 Birthday Batch. The Teeling distillery just turned 7 years old, and in honor of their birthday, they released this special bottling, which is a blend of their single malt, peated single malt, and single pot still. Limited to 900 bottles, this year’s birthday batch is bottled at 47.7% ABV with all profits being donated to local charities.
Distillery Only Irish Oak Bottling. Teeling also recently released a distillery-only bottling for St. Patrick's Day experimenting with Teeling whiskey matured in a virgin cask made of Irish oak. This is the latest in their series of wood experimental releases, including chestnut casks, Hungarian oak and chinkapin oak (all of which we've had the pleasure of tasting at various Drammers events.
Teeling Black Pitts. Peated Irish single malt! You don't hear that very often, though it certainly used to be a thing (hence the "Blackpitts" area in old Dublin, which is just behind the new Teeling Whiskey Distillery and housed the old peat malting houses). Teeling's Blackpitts is triple distilled, which in their words "reduces some of the medicinal character you would get from a traditional Scottish Peated Single Malt and allows the more barbeque smoke characteristic to shine. This is then combined with signature Teeling innovative cask maturation using both ex-bourbon and ex-Sauternes white wine casks, which is bottled at 46% with no chill filtration to produce a truly different and unique expression of Teeling and Irish Whiskey."
Teeling Single Malt. Made with Irish Whiskeys distilled from 100% malted barley, matured and finished in casks that impart the influence of five wine casks (Sherry, Port, Madeira, White Burgundy, Cabernet Sauvignon). This Irish Single Malt Whiskey delivers a fruit-forward flavour profile that the distillery characterizes as "complex, yet balanced and has often been described as “a symphony” of flavour." Non-chill filtered 46% abv.
Teeling Small Batch. To make this heavily awarded core range release, they blend casks of grain and malt whiskey that are initially fully aged in ex-bourbon barrels, then married together in Central American rum casks for up to 12 months, which brings in a dried fruit profile.
Teeling Single Grain Whiskey. Here at Drammers we've long argued that single grain whiskies are a profoundly under appreciated category, so we're very excited that Teeling has leaned in to this expression. It features a mash bill consisting of 95% corn and 5% malted barley that has been triple distilled and matured exclusively in French oak Ex-Cabernet Sauvignon red wine casks from California. 46% abv.
Teeling Single Pot Still. This is perhaps the core range category we're most excited about, following on the event we did with Fionnan O'Connor and his book A Glass Apart, which tells the extraordinary story of Irish Single Pot Still whiskey, a blend of malted barley, unmalted barley and other grains like oats. Fionnan has learned that historically this mash bill would have been 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 of those 3 components, but it had fallen so far out of eyesight that when Ireland codified the definition of Single Pot Still whiskey in the laws, they wrote in that you could not include more than 5% non-barley. In other words, under that definition, you can't make traditional Irish pot still whiskey and (today) call it Irish Pot Still on the label! Astounding. And easily one of the most exciting categories to keep an eye on.
Members ($55) / Observers ($75) person