Teeling Blackpitts Peated Single Malt

This is a classic, triple-distilled Irish Single Malt gently peated and aged in Bourbon and Sauternes casks.

In 2015, Jack and Stephen Teeling founded the Teeling Distillery in The Liberties section of Dublin. It was the first new distillery to open in that city in over one-hundred years. Their father John built the Cooley Distillery in County Louth thirty years earlier, and their great-great grandfather Walter Teeling had built a distillery two hundred years before that. So, to say that Irish Whiskey is in their blood is to understate things a bit. And all that family experience has not gone to waste — their Whiskies are all highly rated and even after only a few years of operation they export their expanding line of premium Irish Spirits to 55 countries.

On the southwest side of Dublin heading toward Harold’s Cross is an old industrial area where they handled peat in the old days. The area was filled with large holes that would be filled with the stuff. And that’s how the place got the name “Blackpitts.”

Teeling Blackpitts Peated Single Malt is the signature, triple-distilled Teeling Irish Single Malt. But in this batch the malt grains have been smoke-dried with peat like they did in the old days. But this is not an Islay hit-in-the-head peated dram. The soft Irish grain and triple distillation mellow out the smoke to a flavorful Bar-B-Q essence. And it’s been aged in 2/3 Bourbon casks and 1/3 Sauternes Wine casks, so it’s got just enough sweetness too.

Smartass Corner:
Sauternes Wine happened by accident. There is a mysterious fungus — Botrytis cinerea, or noble rot — that every once in a while infects a bit of the Sauvignon blanc grape harvest. It makes the grapes grow shriveled with a deeply condensed, sweet, flavorful juice that yields a now sought-after Wine delicacy.