Green Spot Whiskey (40%)
Want to try Green Spot for yourself without paying 80 or 90 bucks for a bottle? Join me at Bar Hop on Peter Street in downtown Toronto on March 14 for a sample of Green Spot and five other Irish whiskeys, plus a welcome cocktail, snacks, and a trip through Irish whiskey history led by yours truly. Get your tickets before they’re gone!
While you will now find all of the ‘spot’ whiskeys listed on the website of Irish Distillers, the Ireland arm of drinks giant Pernod Ricard, and while their origin is to be found in the Pernod Ricard-owned Midleton distillery located a couple of dozen kilometers east of Cork, these rather legendary Irish whiskeys were born under the streets of Dublin. For back in the day – ‘the day’ being well over a century ago – it was not uncommon for merchants to purchase new make spirit from the big distillers and age it on their own premises, which is precisely what wine and whiskey purveyors Mitchell & Son did in the late nineteenth century, allegedly daubing the barrels with a different coloured spot that indicated how long the whiskey within was meant to be aged.
Blue, Green, Yellow, and Red Sop whiskeys – respectively 7, 10, 12, and 15 years old – continued to be produced through the first half of the twentieth century, but hit a rough patch in the 1970s, as did pretty much every Irish whiskey. Single pot still whiskey was in steep decline, ravaged by the effect of US Prohibition and two World Wars, coupled with the rise in popularity of Scottish blended whisky, and the distilleries were floundering, leading to the cutting off of the Mitchells’ whiskey source by the newly formed Irish Distillers, now singularly focused upon its newly reformulated blend, Jamson.
Supply was eventually restored, and ultimately taken in-house by the distillery, but for a couple of decades the Spots were the ‘white whales’ of Irish whiskey, much sought and little found. Thankfully, the line has since been fully restored and expanded, and even if Green Spot has been demoted to non-age statement status – the distillery says it is composed of whiskeys between 7 and 10 years of age – it remains a true classic of the category.
With a bright gold colour, Green Spot boasts a delightfully fruity-spicy nose that evokes ripe pear and apple with hints of white pepper. The body brings the fruit again immediately to the fore, but tempers it quickly with a mix of baking spices, vanilla essence, and a touch of oaky caramel. The finish of this most elegantly complex, light-ish but highly rewarding whiskey offers lingering notes of dryly peppery spice and hints of grain. Definitely a whiskey made for contemplative sipping rather than mixing or – perish the thought! – shooting.
94 ($83 - $91)