That book has made pretty big money on about half a dozen occasions over the last few years.
The Robbie Keane of Irish literature
Indeed!
The book itself is pretty dry but full of interesting information.
Bigger than 220€?
Not in my recollection. But €120 to €200. What tends to happen, when a book first goes for much bigger money, is that other copies appear quite quickly afterwards. The same phenomenon happened with Art Ó Maolfabhail’s Camán (1973) during the 2000s.
Sounds dubious that article/award. Any views on Waterford now @Malarkey a few years in? I know a few people who’ve tasted their stuff and said it’s terrible. Problem is it’s young and he’s been waiting for his own stuff to mature. But all the dicking around with different farm releases seems to have worn thin and they don’t seem to be beating that drum anymore.
Thanks for question. You might remember I made a general point a few years ago – not one I have seen elsewhere – about single malts being an example of the blender’s art. Pretty much all single malts, single cask offerings aside, involve different ages of distillate put together in a formula/recipe established by a given distillery over many years. Buying a 15yo single malt merely means the youngest distillate in the bottling is at least 15 years old. There will likely be small proportions of older distillate present – 20yo, say. The industry view is that this factor rounds out and enriches flavour.
I am a big fan of Waterford Distillery’s existence. But a point struck me, once I started thinking about their ‘single farm origin’ approach: this innovation disallows the blending aspect to single malts, putting all the flavour eggs into the twin baskets of age and origin. This approach pivots on the same distillate from a specific year on a specific farm being released at different stages at an increased age. Might lead to tremendous whisky but there might also be a trick missed.
Coincidentally or not, the best Waterford whiskies I have tasted so far – by quite a distance – are the ones where a form of blending was involved because more than one farm’s distillate was involved. I find it intriguing that a point conceived in the abstract got borne out in practical terms.
Am talking about expressions such as this one:
https://www.masterofmalt.com/whiskies/waterford-distillery/waterford-arcadian-gaia-1-1-whisky/
Coincidentally or not, distillate from seven different farms was involved. This bottle, and similar multi distillate offerings, seem to my palate much more approachable in such whiskies’ youth.
All the same, many of the single farm origin whiskies have attracted remarkably high marks from Serge Valentin, a highly influential figure and not someone previously known as an admirer of Irish whisk(e)y. Only time, literally, will tell as regards the single farm origin approach, its merits and demerits.
I would love to drink some Waterford pot still. But they do not seem to have made any whisky in this style as yet.
Another flavour factor will be that Waterford’s distillate from 2016 to 2020 got produced on one set of stills, a set that originated in Inverleven. Distillate from 2021 onwards got produced on a new (and differently shaped) set of stills. The structure of each individual set is significant for the type of distillate produced, a facet with obvious implications, down the line, for flavour.
I was listening to a new update on YouTube from Ralfy and he was giving out about various distilleries, he said he wasn’t touching anything from Waterford owing to all the noise they’ve made which made him feel cold. Anyway he said apparently the distillery has been sold so maybe the change in ownership might bring about a change. This doesn’t seem to be in the public knowledge but he doesn’t normally get things wrong. @Fagan_ODowd @Malarkey
You’ve never really got over not getting the first bottle from the distillery in fairness. The one that’s worth 5-10 times what it cost.
A triumph of marketing
It’s like buying a painting and leaving it in the wrapping
I’d say Doug is good craic at parties
Pray for Doug
It’s a bad auld box alright don’t know what they were thinking with the previous 28 years or whatever all in wooden boxes. If you’d nine or ten boxes up there on a shelf in timber and then you added that one it doesn’t look right. Small world problems I know but they will likely struggle to sell all 2023 now is my thinking, at least there won’t be the clamber like before. I think there’s about 60k bottles in a normal year like.
Does anyone know the answer to this by the way - does the very rare series end in 2024? I thought I read before that it would be a 40 year series - so with first edition in 1984 that would suggest 2024 is the last one. I could have picked that up wrong as it does seem insanity that they would consider ending it the way it has taken off.
A mates dad has got one of them every year since my mate was born. A fair collection.
Someone should tell Doug he got a very rare box
Back to the 90s I guess then? That’s some going. I’d love to ask the older lads who were older than i was in 1984-85 if Midleton very rare was ever even heard of those years? Looking at you @Fagan_ODowd and @Malarkey and @anon67715551 ? The 1989 bottles alone were £40 back then but selling for over €20k today. I mean if you’d the foresight back then to identify the range as something special you’d have a nice pot heading into retirement now if you’d bought a good few. I suppose no one had an inkling then.