Today I try the last of the Dunville samples and it seems that I left the best for last. The remaining sample was the Dunville’s Three Crowns Sherry Finish whiskey. The original Three Crowns brand was introduced in the 1830s and it was around for about 100 years before being discontinued. I wrote about the history of the Three Crowns brand and the Echlinville distillery when I captured my tasting notes for the 12 yo PX Cask and the Three Crowns Peated whiskey and you can read all about it on those blog posts. Also Read: Bisquit & Dubouché VS Cognac This distillery is also not a stranger ..read more

In December ’22 I opened the first of my Dunville samples. The Dunville’s PX Cask 12 yo whiskey is a moreish sherry cask finish release that is smooth and enjoyable. The second sample I am trying is the Dunville’s Three Crowns Peated whiskey. Dunville’s started as a tea and spirits merchant company based in Belfast. However, it soon dropped the tea and became largely successful as an Irish whiskey blender. In 1869 it built its own distillery, the Royal Irish Distilleries. When the last heir and chairman died in 1931, the company began to flounder, and in 1936 the brand was discontinued when D ..read more

An Irish whiskey for me to try today. Dunville Irish whiskey is relatively new to South Africa, and I have not yet tasted anything from this Northern Ireland-based distillery. I received three different Danville samples from Truman & Orange, and I loved the packaging on this Dunville’s PX Cask 12 yo whiskey, so I decided to try it first. The Dunville Company initially began as a tea and spirits merchant company based in Belfast, founded by John Dumville. He soon ditched the tea portion and became successful as an Irish whiskey blender, and in 1869 built his own distillery, the Royal Irish ..read more

I am exploring the last of my Teeling samples, a single malt whiskey from Ireland, and it is time for the Teeling single malt whiskey. I wrote about Teeling whiskey for the first time in 2015 when I captured my tasting notes for the Teeling Small Batch whiskey. In 2020 I got the opportunity to taste a few more releases from this inventive Irish whiskey brand.  The Teeling Distillery of today was officially opened in 2015. However, the family’s distilling history in Ireland stretches back to 1782; Walter Teeling set up a craft distillery on Marrowbone Lane in the Liberties area of Dublin ..read more

Terroir has been a hot topic in whisky chats again lately, especially since the launch of Waterford The Cuvée. Two weeks ago, I wrote about the Cooladine Edition 1.1 release. This whisky is from Mark Reynier’s new Irish distillery, where the main focus is on the barley. They meticulously document the barley, the weather, the soil conditions and a host of other factors that influence the growth of the barley. It makes for fascinating reading for someone who grew up in the city. The barley from each individual farm is distilled separately and allocated to a country. SA has the Cooladine an ..read more

Green, Yellow, Red, Blue; you can be forgiven if you thought today was another edition of the Johnnie Walker colours. But today, I am looking at an Irish whiskey. Yellow Spot whiskey is the second addition to the ‘Spot’ range of Irish whiskies. Mitchell devised a simple colour-coding scheme for identifying casks, using spots of coloured paint on each cask in the warehouse to track the age of the whiskey in each barrel. Blue Spot was 7 years old, Green Spot was 10 years old, Yellow Spot was 12 years old, and Red Spot was 15 years old. The name stuck, and today the ‘Spot’ range is produced spec ..read more

At the end of 2021, we were invited for drinks by some friends just up the road. Sats received a bottle of the Jameson Select Reserve whiskey from a colleague, and knowing our whisky love, he saved his bottle for our visit. I have to say; there was not much left by the time we walked home. I was quite surprised. I am not the biggest fan of the Jameson standard whiskey, and I was not expecting much. But we all loved the Select Reserve, and I went to buy us a bottle. So, before anything else, thank you, Sats, for saving and sharing your bottle with us. The Jameson Select Reserve is a triple di ..read more

Two weeks ago, I wrote about my first real-life whisky tasting with the Joburg Whisky Club and Candice Baker from Navigate World Whisky. We tasted quite a few delicious drams, including the Linkwood 8 yo whisky. Another delectable release that I tried that evening and promptly went out to buy was the Waterford Cooladine Edition 1.1 Irish whisky. Terroir has been a controversial word in the whisky industry for many years. In 2015, Mark Reynier started his Waterford Distillery project to experiment and fully understand the concept of terroir in whisky. The Waterford Distillery is located in a c ..read more