This Teeling 24 year old single malt Irish whiskey won World’s Best Whisky at the 2019 World Whiskies Awards recently. I am reliably informed that this is the first time an Irish whiskey has achieved this.
The winners of 21 different categories were pitched against one another and Teeling came out on top. It does appear as though some of the categories might have been a tad insubstantial though. For example, Best Egyptian Single Malt. I'd like to know how many different expressions were entered for that.
Teeling Distillery opened and started distilling in 2015. A day trip to Dublin in March the following year - some cheapo flights at the time meant that it was more cost effective for a friend and I to have a day out in Dublin than Glasgow. This probably says more about ScotRail than it does Ryanair - meant that I was able to drop by the distillery albeit briefly.
So, at 24 years old, this is clearly old stock produced elsewhere and not at Teeling Distillery itself. It's finished in ex-Sauternes wine barrels and has a release of 5,000 bottles. Bottled at 46% abv, it's non chill filtered and will set you back £259.95.
Colour: yellow gold
Nose: fresh orange juice; tinned fruit cocktail in syrup; slight hint of wax crayons; wet card; milk chocolate; slight note of new leather.
Palate: apple crumble; vanilla custard; tinned pineapples; grapefruit; there's something herbal in the background which comes to the fore after a while - possibly thyme; becomes quite bitter and drying into the finish.
Conclusion: This Teeling 24 Year Old is very, very drinkable. The only problem is that it's not very, very affordable.
Many thanks to Ros at Maverick Drinks for the sample.
