Whisky art is nothing new, and whether it’s a beautiful photograph of a distillery in the setting sun, or an oil painting of a copper pot still in the stillhouse, there are some incredible pieces of art out there that any whisky enthusiast would be happy to hang on their wall. But whisky art took an unexpected twist recently, with the category moving into the NFT space. WTF is NFT? Well, it’s almost as controversial as NAS, but easily twice as confusing. For whisky has now entered the cryptocurrency arena: NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token. Still need help? You’re not alone, so let’s dive in. Just keep an open mind…..you’ll need it.
Month: June 2021
Teeling Blackpitts
It’s now more than six years since Whisky & Wisdom wrote its first article about Teeling whiskey, and there’s been three or four further articles along the way with subsequent reviews of their excellent whiskies. With the release of Teeling Blackpitts whiskey, the brand has put peated Irish whiskey back on the radar and it’s excited fans of the category worldwide. But before we dive into the specifics on the Blackpitts rekease, it’s worth recapping on the basics….
The Teeling Distillery was completed in Dublin in 2015 and became the first new distillery to be built in Dublin in over 120 years. It also became the first operating distillery in Dublin since the closure of the old Powers distillery in the mid 1970’s. While the distillery’s new spirit was quietly slumbering and maturing, the brand established itself by bottling older whiskey that had been distilled at Cooley. (Cooley had been founded by John Teeling in 1987, hence the connection.) The distillery’s first release of their own home-made spirit was the Single Pot Still release in September, 2018, and there have now been several batches of that bottled since. However, the new Teeling Blackpitts release is the next exciting home-made chapter…
23rd Street Distillery – XXIII Batch 01
23rd Street Distillery joins the growing list of distilleries established in the last 5-6 years that are now bringing their single malt to market. 23rd Street has released a small range of whiskies in the recent past with varied provenance (such as the evocative Hybrid, which was a blend of Scotch whisky and American Bourbon!) but the release of XXIII (Batch 01) heralds in a new era for their home-grown, signature style.
The site at 23rd Street Distillery – located conveniently on 23rd Street in Renmark, South Australia (about a three hour drive north-east of Adelaide) – has a long history in the drinks industry that dates back to 1914, although that was chiefly in the wine industry. The site was acquired by Bickford’s in 2014, and a reported $6.6M (including a government grant of $2.3M) was injected into the project over two years to bring 23rd Street Distillery to life. The distillery launched in 2016 and produces gin, vodka, rum, brandy, and whisky.