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In the latter half of the 19th century, Irish whiskey was one of the most highly regarded drinks in the recordkeeping world with international London merchants selling an average of three Irish cases to every case of Scotch.
Rural distilleries such as Bandon, Comber, Monasterevan, Nun's Island, and Coleraine found their whiskeys patronised by parliament members and New York property tycoons alike while the full-bodied drams of old Dublin legends such as Powers, Roe's, and Marrowbone Lane had earned a reputation as the best brown liquor that money could buy.
At the heart of Dublin distilling's halcyon days lay the uniquely 'mixed' mash bill of traditional Irish 'pure pot still' whiskey. Although it often included small portions of wheat and oats, this definitively Irish style was mainly defined by the inclusion in the mash of raw unmalted barley along with the malt.
Neither a blend nor a single malt, the result was a spirit with the same cereal depth of its otherwise identical single malt sister but with a spicy bristle from the raw unmalted barley and a noticeably thicker and more lathery texture.
Having originally become popular in Ireland as...