Would you pay 35,000 Euros for a bottle of whiskey? Or even E1,200 for a shot. Also, is it the oldest Irish peated whiskey ever released? Would you splash out on something some connoisseurs think smells of old furniture? Along with peat, toffee pennies, blackcurrant jam, sultanas, grapefruit peel, and sweet cherries.
“Silent Distillery Collection Chapter One” is the first in a collection of very old Irish whiskeys from Midleton, Co.Clare Only forty-four bottles of the super-super-premium single-batch third-fill sherry cask 51.2% ABV whiskey have been released. The extremely rare whiskey was distilled in 1974 in a distillery that no longer exists.
A silent distillery is one that has closed down and no longer distills, leaving behind only much-coveted “unicorn whiskeys” maturing in its cellars. Chapter One was infused a year before the Old Midleton Distillery was de-commissioned.
There has been a distillery in Midleton for almost 200 years. It remained operational during the Great Famine, the War of Independence, and the Civil War. In total, six 40 to 50-year-old whiskeys will be on sale one a year until 2025. The final release will mark the 200th anniversary of Midleton Distillery.
In 2005, a bottle of Galways’s 1815 Allman’s Distillery Nun’s Island single malt was auctioned for $146,00” Isabella’s Islay (Price: $6.2 Million) is thought to be the most luxurious whiskey ever marketed. Along with Aisla T’Orte’s 105-Year-Old Master of Malta ( $1.4m ), 64-Year-Old Macallan ($460,000) Springbank 1919 ( $78K) and Glenfiddich 1937 – $71K).
Chapter One’s presentation box by Irish designer John Galvin uses 200-year-old wood from ancient reclaimed whiskey vats. The whiskey comes in Waterford Crystal decanters.
Old Midleton Distillery is now an Irish whiskey museum. Outside is a 31,618-gallon pot still, the largest ever built. Prohibition, politics and the popularity of blended Scotch meant that by 1966 only three Irish whiskey makers remained- John Power & Son, John Jameson & Son and the Cork Distilleries Company (which owned the Old Midleton distillery), who merged to form the Irish Distillers Group ( Pernod Ricard). They closed all existing distilleries and consolidated production at a new facility built at Midleton, next door to the old one.
The rare peated whiskey range is made by Master distiller Emeritus Barry Crockett and fellow distiller, Brian Nation. Says Crockett, the son of a distiller and born on the grounds of Old Midleton Distillery: “Chapter One was among the very last remaining whiskeys to be distilled through the largest pot still ever. It’s the ultimate heirloom and memento of the dedication to precise malt preparation, brewing and distillation skills of generations of distillers at Midleton.”
