The Irish were the first ones to distill whiskey in the British Isles, and in the 19th century, for a hasty time they even boomed to such extent that they edged past their rival, Scottish’s Scotch. But soon they toppled and it struck them in a way that Irish Whiskey was facing the sight of extinction. They gathered themselves back up and now the boom is back for them. Today Irish Whiskey is being distilled by numerous distilleries in the Emerald Isle. That being not too back in past, just the recent past, they had just three distilleries that were operational. Irish Whiskies  are prepared by double distillation, triple distillation and pot still.

It is said that the Irish and Americans changed how their whiskies spelled by adding ‘E’ to whiskey, so as to distinguish themselves from the Scotch Whisky. Typical ingredients used to make an Irish Whiskey are apple, hay, vanilla and nutmeg.

As said in the first subsection, the 19th century belonged to the Irish Whiskey, one that can also be said is that the Irish were the one to bring method of distillation (using the pot still method) to the British Isles. Speaking of Irish Whiskey, there’s only one name that comes to our mind; Jameson (will talk about it in one of the coming posts). Though one Jameson can also be associated with them as the one who revived and revolutionised the Irish Whiskey. John Jameson was one hell of a pioneer who gave the Irish Whiskey an edge over the rival and led it to unmatched consistency.

But that too didn’t last too long. Being all this from the times of 19th century, and the revolutions of 19th century does has its history and war stories to it, so did this one. Their was war between the Scots and Irish, their was governments involved, their was politics involved, the Scots were buying and shutting the Irish distilleries with leaving only one; i.e Irish Distillers Ltd, having their distilleries in Cork and far north.

These dark clouds over the Irish didn’t last long either, credit to Jameson, a whiskey that bought revolution and showed consistency for Irish Whiskey and became a global success. Thus bringing the Irish Whiskey back to global stage.

P.S Now there are many new players emerged in the market offering Irish Whiskey.