An Irish Whiskey is Being Aged in 1,000-Year-Old Irish Oak Casks
The world of Irish whiskey just got a little bit more interesting with this week’s news about a new expression that will be finished in barrels made from a 1,000-year-old Irish oak tree. This is a collaboration between Boann Distillery, the Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Cooperage, and Swainstown Farm which will be released next year, and we have some of the details about this new whiskey to share.
First of all, nature lovers take heart, because this millennium-old tree was not cut down just to make some whiskey. The tree fell naturally after a storm, specifically Storm Elin which brought it down in December of 2023 on Preston’s Estate on Swainstown Farm in County Meath. According to a press release, the Preston family are the descendants of a family who lived in Drogheda, County Louth and operated a whiskey bonding business for about a century into the late 1900s. A section of the tree was shipped to the Vosges region of France where it was cut into staves that were seasoned outdoors for two years. These were then shipped back to Kentucky Bourbon Barrel, a subsidiary of Independent Stave Company, where they were used to build three casks.
These casks were then filled with mature whiskey which was distilled at Boann a few years ago using the distillery’s Preston’s Vintage Mashbill XI recipe. That refers to a recipe which was supposedly unearthed from the 19th-century via the distillery’s Vintage Mashbill program, along with the help of whiskey historian Dr. Fionnan O’Connor. Specifically, the mashbill is as follows: 40 percent malted barley, 36 percent unmalted barley, 17 percent oats, 5 percent wheat, and 2 percent rye. The goal is to bottle this as a single pot still Irish whiskey once the secondary maturation is complete, but according to the brand this depends on the outcome of “public consultation on the Irish Whiskey Product Specification being carried out by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.”
The use of Irish oak, let alone 1,000-year-old oak, makes the whiskey stand out. Irish oak is rarely used to age whiskey because there’s just not a whole lot of it, and there are legal restrictions on how much can be harvested. There have been previous examples, however, like Glendalough’s pot still whiskey finished in Irish oak. “Working with native Irish oak of this age and provenance is an enormous privilege,” said Mark Quick, managing director of Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ireland, in a statement. “Every stave must be carefully examined and shaped before the cask is raised, secured with hoops, and prepared to hold spirit. How we season, shape, toast, and assemble the oak will influence the way the whiskey interacts with the wood throughout maturation. These will become some of the rarest Irish whiskey vessels ever made, created from native oak of extraordinary age and provenance by Irish coopers working in Ireland.”
We don’t know exactly when this new whiskey will be available, only that it will be bottled and released next year. You can find other whiskeys produced at Boann available to purchase at websites like ReserveBar now.
