Last year when I celebrated my 11 year anniversary of living in Ireland I wrote my Dublin bucket list. Frankly, since then I pretty much forgot about it. However, now that the weather is getting nicer I decided to start acting the tourist and tick some things off my abandoned list.
So last weekend Mr. FFID and I headed to the Dublin Flea Market and ended up in Teeling Whiskey Distillery and visitor centre to learn about the first distillery in Dublin in over 125 years.
There are 3 types of tickets available: €14 (includes a Teeling Small Batch & a Seasonal Whiskey Cocktail), €20 (includes a Teeling Trinity Tasting – Small Batch, Single Grain & Single Malt) and €30 (includes a Tasting of award Winning Single Malt, Single Cask and a Vintage Distillery Exclusive Single Malt). We chose the cheapest option but we were lucky to avail of a 1916 celebration price, we paid €19.16 for two. Happy days! We expected to pay €24. The tours take place every day from 9.30 am to 5.30pm.
We were a little early so we waited in the beautiful Phoenix Café where we had hot drinks (3FE coffee and Wall & Keogh tea).
We wait for our guide in the exhibition area where photographs of tattooed locals were on display.
The tour starts with a very short time lapse video of the building of the distillery and a short introduction to the history of Teeling. Going back to Walter Teeling, who started distilling whiskey in 1782 when he set up a craft distillery on Marrowbone Lane in the Liberties.
The area was actually part of the Golden Triangle of Dublin, where many distilleries where clustered within a one mile radius. During the 19th century, Dublin whiskey was recognised as one of the premier whiskies in the world. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, due to competition with Scottish whiskeys, the prohibition in the US and the Irish War of Independence, Irish whiskey lost its status and most of the Irish distilleries closed down, except for Middleton and Bushmills.
John Teeling founded the Cooley distillery in 1987 and went on to sell it to American giant Jim Beam for $95 million in 2011. His sons Jack and Stephen, two entrepreneurs in their thirties opened Teeling Whiskey distillery and visitor centre in 2015 and are certainly responsible for the revival of Irish whiskey.
After the history lesson, you are brought to visit the distillery. The guide talks through the ingredients that go into the whiskey, the different steps of the distillation process (the copper stills are beautiful) and finally the maturation process.
The tour ends with a tasting in the BANG BANG bar which is pretty cool and modern. There is also a gift shop where you can buy all sorts of Teeling products.
The guide was enthusiastic and there was a great energy in the place which made the tour very enjoyable. The premises is stylish and modern and it's brilliant to learn about this Irish family success story, for visitors and locals alike.
Teeling Whiskey Distillery
13-17 New Market Square
Dublin 8
Teeling Whiskey Distillery's website
