Just the two drams on offer today as I’ve been busy with life. My notebook is full yet my ability to actually get things on this forum has been pretty difficult lately. Hopefully in a few weeks time things will settle and I’ll get back to more regular posts.
This particular review has been in my drafts for weeks now, possibly months if I’m being honest so it’s about time it made the light of day.
There’s not going to be much introductory fluff aside from letting you know about the liquids, or as much as I know about them.
First up we have the reimagined Kirker & Greer Shamrock 4 Provinces Blend.
As a brand Kirker & Greer date back to 1885, originally set up by Archibald Kirker and William Greer who were both merchants and blenders in Belfast. In 1886 alongside Belfast distiller James Wilson & Son they founded Connswater distillery. This sat on a twelve acre site and was capable of producing 2,000,000 gallons of grain spirit from two Coffey Stills.
In 1902 it became part of the United Distilleries Company along with Avoniel Distillery, Smyths Distillery, Pennyburn and the Abbey St Distillery in Derry. These had a combined output of 6,000,000 gallons of grain spirit and 1,000,000 gallons of malt and pot still spirit. With the blending facilities of Watt's, Kirker, Greer, and Mitchell's, and their strong retail marketing, UDC was quite a force in the Irish and World Whiskey Market.
By 1922 though the things were in a perilous state. The war of independence and prohibition in America had brought the Irish whiskey industry to its knees and in the same year UDC was taken over by DCL (Distillers Company Limited of Scotland) who immediately closed the plants to save their own sales.
Kirker & Greer today is another Lazarus brand in Ireland founded in 2009 by Steve Pattison and Richard Ryan who are essentially independent bottlers, sourcing liquids for their brands via contract distillers.
The makeup of the whiskey is kind of cool though taking spirits from all four provinces of Ireland to make the blend.
First up let’s look at the overall blend. According to their website it is 60.8% grain matured in first fill bourbon casks, 30.8% malt whiskey matured in first fill bourbon casks, 2.6% peated malt matured in first fill bourbon casks and finally 5.8% pot still matured in Oloroso sherry casks.
Now let’s get to the provincial breakdown.
Leinster which means Great Northern Distillery who provide single grain whiskey, double distilled single malt and triple distilled single malt.
Ulster which is an ‘undisclosed distillery’ from the ‘Wild Atlantic Coast of Northern Ireland’ who provide a ‘rich and complex 16 year old triple distilled single malt whiskey’. No prizes for guessing that this can only mean Bushmills.
Munster brings us to West Cork Distillery who provide triple distilled single malt.
Finally Connacht and The Shed Distillery who provide triple distilled pot still whiskey that has been fully matured for up to 5 years in Oloroso sherry casks.
An interesting mix of components so it’ll be interesting to see how they fare as a final vatting. Bottled at 40% there is no indication as to the use of colouring and I’m pretty sure it’s chill filtered. It’s available for a variety of prices - £25 from Master of Malt (€30/$33), £34.50 from The Whiskey Exchange (€41/$45) and £43 from Irish Malts (€51/$56). That’s an amazingly wide variation of prices.
Thanks to Fairleys Wines for the sample.
Next up today is a brand that I’m sure could care less what I think of their products after my last review of their
Green Crest blend which garnered a very low 2 out of 10.
Not to be put off I thought, I was sent a sample of the Lir Black Crest by my good mucker Richard Webber aka @whiskeybeercigarguyni. I’ll admit that after my experience with the Green Crest I wasn’t exactly thrilled to run the gauntlet with another Lir offering but I’m always up for a challenge.
Now I’m immediately going to take issue with something on the Glens of Antrim distillery website about this bottle. In the description for the blend it says that ‘Black Crest has been matured in a Oloroso Sherry Cask to create a whiskey that is truly unique’. So the usual marketing bluster about how wonderful your whiskey is. But when you look at the image of the bottle on the same page the labelling describes an Oloroso Cask finish. I may be being pedantic but these are very different things.
An Oloroso cask ‘maturation’ to me gives the impression of a full term maturation in the Oloroso cask whereas the ‘finish’ indicates firstly that the whiskey was matured in a different cask style from the start before transfer to the Oloroso cask and that it spent a much shorter time span in the Oloroso cask for the finishing.
Anyway there is precious little info on the actual blend, so kudos to Kirker and Greer for their transparency.
The Black Crest is bottled at 43.3% abv. There are no details on whether there is colouring added or chill filtration. A bottle of the Black Crest will set you back £39.99 (€47.50/$52) from the Glens of Antrim Distillery website.
Kirker & Greer Shamrock 4 Provinces blend 40% abv
Nose: It starts off as a fairly typical Irish blend nose - honeysuckle, apple, pear. Then comes a waft of turf from an open fire. Vanilla and some marmalade.
Palate: Pretty soft, not surprising considering the abv. Vanilla custard, toffee apples, cinnamon, oak shavings, pepper and warm peat smoke just pokes through at the end.
Finish: Short with wood spice, caramel and mild smoke
Score: 4 out of 10
Lir Black Crest 43.3% abv
Nose: That young spirity note of the Green Crest is still the first thing that greets you. Then we get some toasted oak and a hint of char. Green apples, a mild aroma of sherry and dried fruit. A smidge of orange peel.
Palate: Okay, so a decent enough mouthfeel here - brown sugar sweetness on arrival, ground ginger warmth, stewed apples and sultanas plus orange peel. There is still a gluey note apparent but much less prevalent than the Green Crest.
Finish: Short with flavours of a hot toddy
Score: 3 out of 10
Overall:
The Kirker & Greer is not bad and priced quite well at £25 but at the higher end that Irish Malts are charging I’d look elsewhere entirely. But again as I've stressed again and again it's a very competitive market in the blends category, especially with the big boys able to put out the likes of Power's Gold Label and Bushmills Black Bush at lower price points. Saying that if you are looking for a little smokiness in your blend I'd point you to The Silkie over this. Similar price but just slightly better executed. I must say I do like the presentation with the bottle harking back to the Irish whiskey bottles of old.
Thankfully for Lir the Black Crest is a step up over the Green Crest. It's still too expensive and I still don't like how it's presented but the liquid is solid enough.
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