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Green Spot

Green Spot

The Irish whiskey tradition is every bit as proud – and sometimes convoluted – as their Scottish neighbors to the east. Distilled at the New Middleton Distillery for Irish Distillers, an arm of the Pernod Recard, and distributed by Mitchell & Son of Dublin, keeping track of the Green Spot from barley to bottle can be an adventure in and of itself. Regardless, Green Spot is a bonded whisky and one of the few remaining pot still whiskies left in Ireland, deriving its name from the practice of marking casks of different ages with a spot of colored paint to tell them apart. At one time a 10 year old whiskey, the current iteration is made up of whiskies aged 7-10 years. The whiskey has been steadily popular over the past century and more. An older sibling, the Yellow Spot, is aged in Malaga wine casks.

Glenfarclas 17 Year

Glenfarclas 17 Year

Operating continually for over 180 years, Glenfarclas is one of the big players in Speyside, its six stills (3 wash, 3 spirit) are the largest in the region with a capacity of 3.5 million liters per year. Even more impressive is, in a time of proliferating No Age Statement malts, this distillery has an extremely wide range of age statement whiskies in constant production. While they have a few older bottlings like a 25, 30 and 40 year, they also have many younger offerings like 10, 12, 15, 17 and 21 year whiskies that are, relatively speaking, very affordable. This expression, like many Glenfarclas malts, is aged exclusively in ex-sherry casks.

Ardbeg “Dark Cove”

Ardbeg “Dark Cove”

Taking a page from the illicit beginnings of whisky production in a long ago Scotland, the 2016 Committee Release by Ardbeg is called the Dark Cove. This hearkens back to before the official founding of the distillery in 1815, specifically to a time when excise men from the government found and raided the secret cove from whence the smugglers had long been using as a base of operations. With that illegal arm of whisky distribution disbanded, the site was soon occupied by the McDougall family, who were the founders of Ardbeg. Legend has it John McDougall’s own sons, Alexander and Alan, were arrested for smuggling years before the distillery was born. Ardbeg held many events under the cover of night upon this release, along with aging the spirit in dark sherry casks.