Teeling Single Malt & Single Grain Irish Whiskeys

Stephen Teeling from the Teeling Whiskey Company was in town a few weeks ago tasting folks on his line of Irish Whiskeys. I reviewed his Teeling Small Batch blend last year and, it's become one of my go-to Irish blends for tastings. Since then, the company has introduced a single grain whiskey and, most recently, a single malt. While Teeling now has a Dublin distillery which ran its first spirit in March of this year (and they are working on a second distillery for grain), the Teeling whiskeys being sold come from Cooley, the distillery founded by Stephen's father Jack which was purchased by Beam in 2011.

Teeling Single Grain, 5 years old, bottled October, 2014, 46% abv ($50)

The Teeling grain whiskey uses a mash of around 95% corn and 5% malted barley and is aged in California Cabernet casks. It has very light cereal notes on the nose followed by sweet cereal on the palate. Mid-palate turns to wood spice notes, and it finishes with dry hay notes.  I'm not a huge fan of grain whiskeys of this type, but this one was quite pleasant and comparable to the better Scotch and Irish grain whiskeys I've had.

Teeling Single Malt, 46% abv ($55)

The new single malt carries no age statement and includes barrels treated with various finishes. The nose has light grain notes, sweet white wine and grapes.  In contrast to the rather sweet nose, the palate is quite dry with some spice leading into a spicy finish. There was a nice contrast between the sweetness of the nose and the dry palate on this one. Interestingly, it lacked much in the way of traditional malty notes. If anything, the Teeling Small Batch blend tastes more like a single malt than this one does, and while the Small Batch might be more approachable, the single malt is a bit more complex.

Teeling is doing some good work in the world of Irish Whiskey, and they aim to continue. Currently, they have a number of older, age stated single malts (21, 26 and 30 years old) available in Europe. They are looking at bringing some of those to the US next year and possibly some single cask bottlings as well. I know I'll be interested to try whatever they release.