This is what you should be drinking on St Patrick’s Day
Tomorrow is St Patrick’s Day, and while Boris didn’t actually order the closure of pubs until 20 March 2020, for most of us this will be the second year in a row that we mark the event at home. This is no time to crowd into a bar with your mates, swilling Guinness while shouting along with songs from The Chieftains, The Pogues, or The Dubliners. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t get into the spirit of the occasion. And the spirit of St Patrick’s Day is Irish whiskey.
Ireland was once the powerhouse of world whiskey production. At its late 19th century peak, the island of Ireland was home to at least 28 distilleries, and it exported spirits in great quantities to the US, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia. But a decline that began with increased competition from Scottish distilleries in the late Victorian period, came to a crunch in the 1920s and ’30s, when Prohibition and the Anglo-Irish trade war simultaneously deprived the industry of its markets in America and the Commonwealth.
The biggest victim of these unfortunate circumstances was the Thomas Street Distillery, which was forced to close in the mid-1920s. Once owned by George Roe & Co, it had been Dublin’s largest distillery, covering 17 acres, with more than 200 employees, and an annual output in excess of 2m gallons.
Time rolled on, and while part of the site was later purchased by the Guinness Brewery, the fortunes of the Irish whiskey continued to wane. By the mid 1960s there were just two distilleries in Ireland, Bushmills in Northern Ireland and the Old Midleton Distillery in Cork, and by the early ’70s both were owned by a single company. The effective monopoly was eventually broken in the late ’80s, and since then renewed interest has led to a phenomenal resurgence.
Since 1990, Irish whiskey has been the fastest growing category of spirits. At the end of last year, the trade body Drinks Industry Ireland published a report reflecting on the previous decade, during which time sales went from fewer than 5mn cases a year in 2010, to 12m; a 140 per cent growth (or a category annual growth rate of 9.1 per cent). During the same period, there was a more than ninefold increase in the number of operational distilleries, from four to 38 (although many are so new that they are yet to produce enough sufficiently aged spirit on-site for sale).
One of the new distilleries to emerge in this time was Roe & Co, which was announced by the drinks giant Diageo in 2017. It was named in honour of George Roe & Co, and in 2019 it went into production, operating out of the old power plant of the Guinness Brewery, which now encompasses part of the original Roe & Co’s Thomas Street Distillery.
By Irish law, all Irish whiskeys must be aged in barrels for a minimum of three years, so the spirit currently on sale is not produced in-house, but Master Blender Caroline Martin spent two years trialling over 100 blends before finally settling on the right formula for the modern Roe & Co. It is a beautifully smooth blend of fine Irish malt and grain whiskies, all aged in first-fill ex-bourbon casks, and bottled at a generous 45% ABV. It smells of crème caramel, tastes of rum-soaked pears, and the mellow creaminess of the grain whiskies ensure a long, decadent finish.
Roe & Co is certainly a whiskey you can enjoy straight, but during this third lockdown and the long tail of winter, the right way to celebrate St Patrick’s Day 2021 is with a hug in a mug – Roe & Co’s ultimate Irish coffee:
Ingredients
- 40ml Roe & Co Irish whiskey
- 60ml freshly brewed americano coffee
- 10ml porter syrup (or sugar syrup)
- 15ml fresh, lightly whipped cream
- Grated nutmeg and 3 coffee beans
Method
- Heat the Irish coffee glass with boiling water
- Once heated empty the water out, and add 60ml of freshly brewed hot coffee and in the syrup
- Stir lightly
- Pour in 40ml of Roe & Co, and layer lightly whipped fresh cream on top
- Garnish with 3 coffee beans and a light dusting of grated nutmeg
Roe & Co premium Irish whiskey is available to buy from The Whisky Exchange – get a bottle for St Patrick’s Day.