Dingle Distillery recently released the fifth and final edition in its Single Pot Still Whiskey series. Eight thousand bottles were produced, as well as 1,000 cask-strength bottles of the same whiskey. This release has been aged entirely in used bourbon casks and has an abv of 46.5 per cent. Previous releases in the series have focused on sherry finishes, with the exception of the Third Single Pot Still which was finished in port casks.

Managing director Elliot Hughes was upbeat when I spoke to him. “It’s been going very well. The fifth release marks a kind of a departure for us and allows people to finish off the collection.” He tells me that reaction has been very positive so far.

Uniquely Irish style

“I really enjoy it but then I am very biased. We deliberately used bourbon to show where we have got to as a distillery. It is a true reflection of the spirit we are producing as we grow older. These are now seven- and eight-year-old whiskeys. This carries the vanilla flavour; we’re not using big, flavoured casks that can mask the original pure Single Pot Still.”

One of the first new Irish whiskey producers, Dingle was also the first distillery outside of Midleton to release a single pot still whiskey. A uniquely Irish style, it is made by a single distillery using a combination of malted and unmalted barley. A malt whiskey is made entirely from malted barley. The Dingle Fifth Single Pot Still Whiskey is available from independent whiskey retailers, as well as dingledistillery.ie and Irish malts.com for €90, and €190 for the cask strength.