Food Writers Guild Award for Teeling
Stephen Teeling at the Awards ceremony in the Marker Hotel where Irish Drink product Teeling Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey won the Award for Best Irish Drink.
Whiskey-making has been part of the Teeling family history since 1782, when Walter Teeling set up a small distillery on Marrowbone Lane in Dublin 8.
Today, brothers Jack and Stephen Teeling are the sons of Walter’s descendant John Teeling, the man who revitalised the Irish whiskey industry in 1987 by setting up the first new distillery in Ireland for nearly a century.
2012 saw Jack and Stephen relaunch their family brand and commission Dublin’s first new distillery in over 125 years.
Three years later they opened the doors of Teeling Whiskey Distillery in Newmarket in the heart of the Liberties, literally a stone’s throw from Marrowbone Lane.
The brothers now produce a number of innovative, award-winning cask-finished whiskeys, most recently Teeling Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey for which they received the IFWG Irish Drink Award.
Made from a 50/50 mix of malted and unmalted barley, it has been matured in virgin oak, ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. It’s the first new pot still whiskey to be produced in Dublin for nearly 50 years.
The eight winners of the 2020 Irish Food Writers’ Guild Food Awards were:
- Food Award: Frank Hederman for Hederman Hot Smoked Irish Salmon, Co Cork
- Food Award: Shine’s Seafood for Shine’s Wild Irish Tuna, Co Donegal
- Food Award: Inch House Traditional Black Pudding, Co Tipperary
- Irish Drink Award: Teeling Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey, Co Dublin
- Outstanding Contribution to Irish Food Award: Joyce Timmins, Co Dublin
- Environmental Award: Exploding Tree (Chocolate), Co Cork
- Community Food Award: Falling Fruit Ireland (fruit harvesting), Co Dublin
- Lifetime Achievement Award: Jeffa Gill (cheesemaker), Co Cork
“In considering this year’s award-winners, we identified a fantastic company producing Fairtrade chocolate sustainably in Cork along with a wonderful cheesemaker, also in Cork, who has dedicated much of her life to the betterment of Ireland’s food culture,” said IFWG Chairperson Kristin Jensen, speaking at the Awards, “The Guild was so impressed by their work, their standards of excellence and their contribution to our food industry that we have singled them both out for an IFWG Award, one of the highest accolades in the Irish food honours list.”
The awards, begun in 1993 with just three awards, are now in their 26th year celebrating excellence and recognising indigenous food producers and organisations that help to create and maintain Ireland’s outstanding reputation in food and drink.
“These awards highlight the incredible work of small, independent Irish food producers and organisations at a time when supporting local, home-grown industries has never been more relevant or important,” said Kristin.
The IFWG also paid tribute to Bord Bia for its support of the awards and its work on the home and export markets to promote and develop the Irish food industry.
Bord Bia’s Director of Marketing Una Fitzgibbon said, “Consumers are actively seeking out new food experiences and research by our consumer and market insight centre, Bord Bia Thinking House, has shown that the majority of Irish shoppers have a real appetite to buy locally sourced, high-quality food and drink products”.
The Awards were celebrated at The Marker Hotel with an excellent lunch specially created by Executive Head Chef Gareth Mullins, who incorporated the winning produce into a six-course menu.
The IFWG Food Awards are unique as no one can enter themselves or their product and no company initially knows it has been nominated or shortlisted for an award. The Guild is the sole nominating and decision-making body. The exception to this is the Community Food Award, for which the Guild invites nominations every year from the general public as well as their own members.
