For Peat's Sake - Begorra! The story of an Irish whiskey
that thinks it's a Scotch
In the late 1960s two Irish expatriates met in a Boston area
bar and made a vow. Lamenting the deaths of so many storied whiskeys, John Teeling
and Willie McCarter promised that when they made their fortunes they would revive
old classics at a distillery of their own making. In 1987 they met up in the
town of Cooley, Ireland, and soon the Irish flowed -- including something very
strange: Irish whiskey made with peated barley, like a Scotch. But doesn't this
break the cardinal rule of what Irish is? I asked David Hynes, Cooley's managing
director. "It was done in the past," he explained, "but mainly by the unlicensed
distillers." In the early 1800s there were some 2,000 illicit whiskey stills
in Ireland, Hynes said. The tradition of Irish moonshine (called poit'n) hasn't
quite died out: Now and again the police will find an illegal still, especially
around Connemara, from which Cooley's signature whiskey takes its name. Peat
is added at only half the strength of an Islay whisky, but it still offers a
powerful blast of smoke and fire. However, Connemara represents an existential
challenge to the whole idea of Irish whiskey: a look back to what it once was,
and a look forward to the freedom of what it may become. --J.H.
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