Marketing

Icewine Cask Finish  –  a First for Irish Whiskey

A special collaboration with Inniskillin Winery in Niagara, Ontario - Canada’s original estate winery - has yielded a unique expression of Writers’ Tears Single Pot Still & Single Malt vatting, bottled at 46% ABV.
In Ireland Writers’ Tears – Icewine Cask Finish is available exclusively from the Celtic Whiskey Shop in Dublin.

In Ireland Writers’ Tears – Icewine Cask Finish is available exclusively from the Celtic Whiskey Shop in Dublin.

Walsh Whiskey, producers of Writers’ Tears and The Irishman Super-Premium whiskeys, has unveiled a first for Irish whiskey with the creation of an Icewine-finished whiskey.

Writers’ Tears – Icewine Cask Finish has been produced in collaboration with Inniskillin Winery, Canada’s leading producer of icewine and the limited-edition release is a unique triple-distilled vatting of Single Pot Still & Single Malt whiskeys,  finished for an additional 12 months in icewine hogsheads before being bottled at 46% ABV.

This 23rd expression from Walsh Whiskey founders Bernard & Rosemary Walsh is the latest innovation in their quest to produce the perfect taoscán [tay-scawn]/drop of whiskey.

This time their journey took them to Canada’s prime wine region when Bernard & Rosemary visited the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario in January 2020. There they worked with Inniskillin Winery and its then Head Winemaker Bruce Nicholson (now retired), touring the vineyard and sampling fermenting wines before selecting 12 hogshead casks originally coopered by the Berthomieu Cooperage (estd 1906) in France.

The dozen selected hogsheads were disgorged of Inniskillin Icewine in March 2020 and shipped to Ireland where they were filled with Writers’ Tears – Copper Pot (at high strength) in May that year. Checked at monthly intervals, the first Irish whiskey ever finished in icewine casks was bottled 12 months later, in May 2021.

“I first tasted icewine in 2011, so plans for this expression have been fermenting in my head for some time,” said Walsh Whiskey Managing Director Bernard Walsh, commenting on the first-ever icewine cask finish of an Irish whiskey, “With our core Writers’ Tears–Copper Pot expression we have a unique combination of predominantly spicy Single Pot Still married with Single Malt Irish whiskey. This core expression gets a whole new dynamic complimented beautifully by the intense natural sweetness imparted by Inniskillin’s show-stopping icewine.”

He added, “Inniskillin Icewine certainly contains that intense sweetness that can carry through in the wood to our whiskey.”

3,500 bottles of Writers’ Tears – Icewine Cask Finish are being released to Canada, the US and Ireland. The whiskey is in market in Canada and Ireland and will be on shelves in the US in early November.

 

 

 

 


Sign Up for Drinks Industry Ireland

Get a free weekly update on Drinks Industry trade news, direct to your inbox. Sign up now, it's free