Tullamore D.E.W. (40%)
Want to try Tullamore D.E.W. and five other Irish Whiskeys in the lead-up to St. Patrick’s Day? Join me at Bar Hop on Peter Street in downtown Toronto on March 14 for a trip through Irish whiskey history led by yours truly. Get your tickets before they’re gone!
Although Irish Distillers in general and Jameson in particular are generally credited with ushering in the lighter, grain inclusive style of Irish whiskey that has led to its decades-long renaissance, the real pioneer was the Tullamore distillery and the Williams family. In 1947, according to the seminal whisky writer Dave Broom in his World Atlas of Whisky, the Williams-owned distillery added a column still to its existing pot still and began making a lighter, blended style of spirit from grain, pot still, and single malt whiskeys
Alas, it turned out to be too little too late, and the distillery closed less than a decade later with its whiskey production transferred to the Midleton distillery of Irish Distillers. That relationship continued through a pair of owners until Scotland’s William Grant & Sons bought the brand in 2010 and announced its intent to return distilling to Tullamore.
Today, all three of the whiskeys that are blended into Tullamore D.E.W. are distilled in Tullamore, as they were in the mid-1900s. Further, one finds that the number ‘three’ is repeated quite a bit when Grant & Sons speak of their Irish brand, emphasizing the triple distillation of the spirits, as is common among many Irish distilleries, as well as the minimum of three years the whiskey is aged, which is actually enshrined in law by the Irish Whiskey Act.
As for the ‘D.E.W.’ part of the name, that is a reference to the initials of the late 19th century Tullamore distillery manager, Daniel Edmunds Williams, who the distillery’s website describes as “one of the greatest distillers Ireland has ever had.” Which may or may not be true, but the restoration of the initials to the brand by Grant & Sons after many years of absence – Tullamore Dew, as it was when I first came to know it, rather than Tullamore D.E.W. – is a noble nod to the whiskey’s long and storied history.
Today’s D.E.W. is light gold with a grassy, almost hay-like aroma boasting citrus notes and a whiff of toasted oak. The body is medium weight, as you’d expect of such a blend, and bright and faintly cereally, with prickly spice notes and hints of milk chocolate on the finish. The pot still and single malt spirits both show in the character of this whiskey, but hardly define it, with the light grain whiskey more its driving force. Perfectly fine for afternoon sipping over ice, but perhaps better combined with soda in a highball.
86 ($40)