Make mine a double century

he Dungourney river rises near Ardglass in East Cork, wends its way past the village of Clonmult, flows gently south towards Ballyspillane and then meanders towards the charming market town of Midleton. There, it meets the Owenacurra river and eventually courses into the Great Island Channel of Cork Harbour. In 1794, this abundant supply of free-flowing water convinced a gentleman named Marcus Lynch that Midleton would be the perfect setting for the woollen mill he intended to build. With backing from a London consortium, he leased the site from George Broderick, 4th Viscount of Midleton, and set to work. Local limestone was cut to form the imposing walls of the mill buildings. Water from the Dungourney would power the millers’ looms. Lynch commissioned a villa to be built on the grounds, so that he could look out every day at the fruits of his labours. The textile industry, however, was — and remains — a volatile business. To the detriment of his own fortune, but to the benefit of whiskey connoisseurs the world over, Marcus Lynch and partners would eventually declare themselves bankrupt.

Two hundred years ago, the Murphys from Cork founded a distillery on the banks of the Dungourney river in Midleton. Despite wars, recession, prohibition, stock market crashes and many other challenges since, it’s still going strong writes Simon O'Neill.

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Almost immediately, there was a problem. The conditions of the Murphys’ new leasehold apparently did not give them access to the free-flowing waters of the Dungourney river. Whiskey distillation is a difficult enough business at the best of times, but it is impossible to manufacture uisce beatha — ‘the water of life’ — without the crucial uisce itself. Fortunately, the Murphys had an extremely accomplished lawyer to argue their case, in no less a personage than Daniel O’Connell himself. O’Connell was one of the most brilliant legal minds in Ireland, whose impassioned speeches “tormented judges” and “terrorised opposing barristers”, according to Patrick M. Geoghegan’s superlative biography. He was a good man to have in your corner when it came to a land dispute. It is thanks in no small part to O’Connell, known historically as ‘the liberator’, that the Murphys were free to produce their libations with water drawn from the Dungourney. They moved their large families to the distillery and learned everything there is to know, from the ground up. Within 30 years of opening, by 1854 the distillery was home to a massive pot still, built from copper sheets and known affectionately as “the seventh wonder of the whiskey world”.

Make mine a double century

In 1803, during the Napoleonic wars, the derelict mill buildings were purchased for £20,000 and requisitioned as a barracks and stables for the Crown’s forces. When that conflict ended in 1815, the buildings once again fell silent. A decade later, the Murphys, a successful Catholic merchant family from Cork city, were looking to get into the whiskey business. The establishment of duty-free warehousing in the 1820s made whiskey production attractive to the entrepreneurial Murphys, who imported luxury goods, such as “currants from Sicily, olive oil and almonds” into the bustling port of Cork. And while they had no experience of running a distillery, they would learn fast. There were three reasons why Midleton was the ideal location, as Carol Quinn, head of archives at Irish Distillers, explains.

“They merged to form a new entity called Irish Distillers. This really was the last throw of the dice. They had this burning belief, not only in the quality of what they produced, but that it had a future for Ireland. So, they needed to make a lot of very tough decisions.” The first decision was where to base this new company. Over a century had now passed from that fateful day when the Murphys first strolled along the banks of the Dungourney River, and the advantages of the location still held true. The Dublin breweries, meanwhile, had been swallowed up by a city designed for horse and cart. “You couldn’t get a modern lorry or a tanker in. They were no longer fit for purpose. Unlike its Dublin counterpart, Midleton distillery was adjacent to a greenfield site.” Midleton won out.

MIDLETON 200TH Anniversary

LIBERATION AND DISTILLATION

Following an economic slump in the 1850s, Midleton distillery joined forces with four other Cork-based distilling firms in the 1860s to form a new company under the guidance of the Murphy clan, known as the Cork Distilleries Company, or CDC. CDC whiskey was sold to publicans and private individuals in barrels. The idea of going out and buying a bottle of whiskey was a long way off. Each pub was essentially selling the same product but, in order to convince customers that theirs was the finest whiskey in Cork City, they commissioned localised labels. Carol and her team still have some of these very first labels with their elegant trademarks that promote CDC whiskey availability in Cork pubs, many of which are still trading today. Throughout the 1870s, the Cork Distilleries Company started picking up awards. They took a prize at the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876. They then won gold in Paris in 1878. “They were up against Cognacs and Champagnes and winning. So their confidence in their single pot still whiskey was super high. And that’s still very much the case today,” Carol says.

PRIZE-WINNING WHISKEY AND THE FIRST MERGER

“Midleton has been called the heart and home of the single pot still,” says Carol. “There are many reasons for this, but two that stand out for me. It is not only home to Ireland’s largest pot still, the one installed by the Murphy family in 1854, but also to Ireland’s largest pot still in operation today, installed in 2013 in the Garden Still House. For a time in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Midleton was the only distillery left in the Republic of Ireland making pot still whiskey.”

STILL LIFE

As the 20th century dawned, the Cork Distilleries Company was in rude health. And yet, there were dark clouds on the horizon. Europe was lurching towards war. There was revolution and chaos at home. The First World War was followed by the War of Independence and a Civil War that was deeply felt in Cork in particular. On January 17, 1920, prohibition came into force in the USA. American bootleggers started labelling their rotgut as ‘Irish whiskey’ and the brand’s reputation took a nosedive. “For a lot of Americans, the first taste of what they believed to be Irish whiskey was in fact this bootlegged horrible, burning, fiery spirit.” Scotch whisky, as a result, becomes mainstream America’s tipple of choice. The Wall Street Crash in 1929 led to an economic decline at home and abroad throughout the 1930s. And the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 further paralysed international trade.

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“Firstly, there is a harbour less than a kilometre away, called Ballinacurra. From there, a ship can go into Cork Harbour, which is the second-largest natural harbour in the world, and then, the world is your oyster.” The second reason was, again, proximity to the water. The river wasn’t merely a source of power, but a vital raw ingredient in the process itself. The third reason was easy access to the bountiful barley fields on their doorstep. Even today, as Carol says, “We still source our barley locally.”

The original leather-bound ledgers preserved by Carol and her team show the sales of barley recorded by fastidious clerks in elegant cursive handwriting. The faded pages call out family names from centuries past: Hearn, Ross, Walsh, Kennedy, Linehan, Sullivan, Wall and McCarthy. “For these farming families, having an industry embedded in agriculture on their doorstep would have been an absolute game-changer,” says Carol. With fresh water, golden barley and the means to transport their finished product, the property was sold by Lord Midleton to brothers James, Daniel and Jeremiah Murphy on December 20, 1825.

High spirits The Midleton distillery today

Prior to the move from the old Midleton distillery to the new state-of-the-art facility in 1975, a few final casks of whiskey that were performing exceptionally well were put aside. These barrels would become the Midleton Very Rare Silent Distillery Collection and are the very last drops to be released from the legendary, and now silent, old Midleton distillery. The old Irish saying, “An rud is annamh is iontach”, tells us that what’s rare is wonderful, but what is both rare and finite is truly precious. With each new chapter, the voice of the Silent Distillery Collection becomes a little fainter.

One of the key people overseeing the release of this, the sixth and final chapter, is master distiller Kevin O’Gorman. Kevin’s journey at Midleton began under the tutelage of the legendary Barry Crockett, who lived on-site, in the Distiller’s Cottage. Barry passed the baton to Brian Nation, before Kevin became the third Midleton Very Rare master distiller. For the Murphys in the 19th century, the role of distiller would have been an inherited position. These days, a sense of continuity comes through in the graduate programmes they run. “We keep graduates on, particularly if they have a passion for what they do, which they always have. And I suppose that’s how we build up the next generation,” Kevin says. Kevin explains how he first became aware of the mythical Silent Distillery Collection. “When I joined in 1998, one of the warehouse supervisors at the time took me on a tour after the first few weeks. We went into an old warehouse, which dates back to the 1850s or 1860s. There was a collection of casks in the corner. I asked him what they were and he told me that they had been kept over from the old distillery. “They were distilled back in 1973 and 1974, so even at that time they would have been 30-plus years old. I remember him saying to me, ‘these are liquid gold,’ and as the years went on, I got to know more about that liquid.”

liquid gold

THE FINAL CHAPTER

When a whiskey cask is opened, a certain amount will have evaporated over the years — the so-called ‘angels’ share’. Chapter Six of the Silent Distillery Collection is a combination of four of these final casks combined into a single, very special barrel: number 9158, the last in a distinguished line. This bespoke cask was crafted by master cooper Ger Buckley and cooper Derek Cronin. A completely unique barrel, it was created using wood staves and heading from the five previous Silent Distillery releases, with Buckley meticulously selecting and reassembling staves from each chapter to form a one-of-a-kind cask for the final marrying of this historic last chapter. “They were distilled just before the closure of old Midleton and the move to the new modern distillery next door. At the time, Max Crockett, who had been the master distiller, would have set aside those casks with a vision for the future. Then he handed those over to Barry Crockett, and Barry handed them to Brian Nation. And then Brian handed them to me.” Looking back, Kevin says, “I’ve been lucky, honestly, to release these to the world. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Each of these chapters is different in its own way. The maturation journey ranges from 45 to 50 years. Some of these releases involved a very complex journey with the whiskey moving from different styles of cask, contributing additional aromas and flavours. And through that incredible journey, they were meticulously looked after.”

IRISH DISTILLERS TIMELINE

1794

Marcus Lynch leases the site from George Broderick, 4th Viscount of Midleton. Construction begins on the Distiller’s Cottage.

1803

The mill buildings are purchased for £20,000 by Lord Ashcroft’s government.

1825

20 December. The site is purchased by James, Daniel and Jeremiah Murphy.

1829

‘The liberator’ (and barrister for the Murphy family), Daniel O’Connell, secures the final instalment of Catholic emancipation.

1845

The Famine, or ‘the Great Hunger’, begins.

1854

The world’s largest pot still is installed at Midleton distillery.

1867

The Midleton distillery merges with four other distilleries to become the Cork Distilleries Company (CDC).

1966

Cork Distilleries Company, John Jameson & Son and John Power & Son merge to form Irish Distillers.

1920

17 January. Prohibition comes into force in the USA via the Volstead Act.

1968

The iconic green Jameson whiskey bottle is introduced to the world.

1975

The old distillery closes and production moves to the new, state-of-the-art facility.

1984

Midleton Very Rare is launched.

2012

A double century of distilling is celebrated at Midleton. Cheers.

2025

The Irish Whiskey Academy opens its doors on the grounds of the old and mew Midleton distilleries.

2015

By the 1950s, Irish whiskey exports into the crucial US market had hit a slump. In the classic 1954 Oscar-winning film On the Waterfront starring Marlon Brando, New York longshoreman Kayo Dugan is unloading a ship on a Hoboken pier, and wistfully says, “I wonder when we’ll get a boat from Ireland with some good Irish whiskey on it.” “Dugan, my boy,” his friend replies, “you’re dreaming again.” The decline continued into the 1960s. A new generation was turning to cocktails and mixers, drinking lighter, cheaper gins, vodkas, Vermouths and Martinis. Whiskey was seen as old-fashioned, to be consumed in dark bars with sawdust on the floor. Drastic action was needed. In 1966, the ‘big three’ Irish whiskey producers — Cork Distilleries Company, John Jameson & Son and John Power & Son — came together “in an act of economic patriotism,” says Carol.

Whiskey ledger Carol Quinn, head of archives at Irish Distillers

The golden yard The grainstore yard of Midleton, taken in 1930

Mindful of changing tastes, Irish Distillers started to produce blends, starting with the launch of Power’s Gold label in 1967. A year later, Jameson appeared for the first time in its iconic green bottle. In 1975, Irish Distillers moved to a new state-of-the-art facility on the same site on which Jameson whiskey is still produced. Today, Jameson is a top 10 global spirit brand, the world’s most awarded and best-selling Irish whiskey with annual sales exceeding 10 million cases. There aren’t many indigenous Irish companies still making the same product, in the same premises, after two centuries in business. And so, on December 20 this year raise a glass to wish Irish Distillers’ Midleton distillery a happy 200th. You’ll be toasting a genuine Irish success story that has seen off war, prohibition, recession and economic downturn and straddled three centuries to emerge stronger and healthier than at any time in its illustrious history. Sláinte.

Rare drop Kevin O’Gorman, master distiller at Midleton, with the final release from the Midleton Very Rare Silent Distillery Collection

Dropping

slow

and

silent

The transfer from cask to bottle is the moment when Chapter Six reaches its climax; when the last thing anyone wants is a mishap. “Fortunately, they were in good hands. Our warehouse team of Daniel, Brian, Tom and Kevin are the right guys for the job. They’re really experienced and skilled in handling precious liquid like this. They don’t spill a drop!”

The whiskey within is cask strength, 53% abv. Picking up a glass of the precious nectar, Kevin detects vibrant flavours on the nose. “Even after 50 years the whiskey opens with wonderful dark fruits like plum, blackcurrant and blackberry. Then you get aromas of dark chocolate with a hint of toffee and cocoa. There are earthy aromas of dried tobacco leaves with worn leather and antique oak. The whiskey is so complex and it delivers something extraordinary — stone fruit such as peach and nectarine with notes of treacle, raisin and wonderful pot still spices.” There is something elemental — earthy and ethereal — about a 50-year-old whiskey from Midleton. These are the final drops from a bygone era of distilling and they form an unbroken link to the past. A sense of history permeates the air; it connects you to the hulking old stone walls of the grain stores and the still, silent warehouses lined with maturing whiskey barrels. And with this last chapter, a hush descends on the Silent Distillery Collection, and on old Midleton. The celebrations to mark 200 years of whiskey production in this idyllic setting, and the release of this special 50-year-old Midleton Very Rare Silent Distillery Collection, however, are unlikely to be as silent.

These are the final drops from a bygone era of distilling and they form an unbroken link to the past

Divine deductions Casks showing the effect of ‘the angels’ share’ at Midleton

The liquid gold is gorgeously presented. “Each bottle is a beautifully designed decanter, individually mouth- blown and refined by a specialist craftsperson from the House of Waterford. There are subtle variations from bottle to bottle.” The display box is a work of art in itself, designed by John Galvin from Youghal, keeping the East Cork connection going. “John is probably one of, if not the best, craftsmen doing something like this. He hand-makes all the boxes from different types of wood. Over the five previous chapters, we had woods such as lacewood, Japanese tamo wood and burr elm. To mark the sixth and final release, he has carefully selected and combined six rare woods, each of which featured in the cabinets of the first five Silent Distillery releases, the sixth being a blue bird’s eye maple.”

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