By Richard Thomas
(Credit score: Richard Thomas)
Two Stacks Irish Whiskey is a relative newcomer to what had been an Emerald Isle whiskey growth. Based in 2000 by a trio of buddies, the corporate was established as a traditional Irish bonder and has the acknowledged intention of serving to to revive what had been a thriving industrial sector in Eire. Briefly, an Irish bonding firm is a type of a non-distillery producer or negociant. The agency buys new make and already aged whiskeys, shops them in their very own warehouses for additional growing old underneath their very own supervision, after which blends their very own merchandise.
This apply is differs from merely having a sourced model within the further handiwork concerned. An organization, both within the US or Eire, can merely outsource the whiskey and bottle it as a completed product, lowering the warehousing overhead to nil and the mixing work to a minimal. Bonders/negociants perform in the identical method a distillery would relating to the ultimate phases of creating a product. A century in the past, there have been lots of of bonders in Eire; now only some corporations verify all of the packing containers to be so described. Their merchandise are imported into the US by Foley Household Wines and Spirits.
One other characteristic of Two Stacks is their “Dram in a Can.” I imagine the easiest way to take a look at these little canned whiskeys as a really sturdy tackle the normal mini. My preliminary response, in actual fact, was that the Dram in a Can would possibly go well with campers fairly properly, however then I remembered that I used to be managing completely properly with a flask. You additionally can not convey these items onto airplanes and cater your personal onboard consuming. Besides, for the oldsters who use 50ml minis, the Dram in a Can serves the identical perform.
The corporate has all 4 of the classes of Irish whiskey coated in its common line-up: blended whiskey, single malt, single pot nonetheless and single grain. The final one is what prompted me to debate Two Stacks at size, moderately than do a straight evaluation or two of their merchandise. Single grain whiskey is a uncared for class in Irish Whiskey, and this regardless of Teeling’s Single Grain Whiskey having been a type of sleeper whiskeys that individuals like me have been attempting to pull drinker’s attentions to for greater than a decade now.
Two Stacks Double Barrel Single Grain might be seen as swimming upriver, then. Matured in ex-bourbon barrels and ex-Sherry casks, it’s a gentle bodied, straightforward consuming whiskey. Non-whiskey drinkers will discover it approachable, bourbon drinkers a little bit acquainted, and people who already get pleasure from Irish Whiskey ought to admire going to a nook of it hardly ever drawn upon in its personal proper. The standard honey and fruity sweetness is accented with bourbonesque vanilla and the anticipated butterscotch. Bottled at 43% ABV, I feel it joins the previous Teeling Single Grain as a type of reasonably priced sleeper expressions that extra individuals ought to take note of.
The flagship expression for Two Stacks is their blended whiskey, The First Minimize — Signature Mix. As Irish blended whiskeys go, the inventory engaged is advanced: 40% aged in ex-bourbon barrel single grain and 40% grain whiskey aged in new American oak, each coming from a 95% corn, 5% malted barley mash (we will see the place the above single grain comes from already); 10% double distilled malt; 8% pot nonetheless whiskey (50% malted and 50% unmalted barley); and a pair of% peated malt whiskey. It’s bottled at 43% ABV in a 700ml bottle. The end result of all that may be a whiskey that may be very a lot within the vein of Tullamore DEW: gentle, however creamy; fruity; and setting aside from its friends is the barest whiff of smoke.
These are the one two choices from Two Stacks I’ve tried but, however the single grain particularly evokes sturdy curiosity for the one pot nonetheless whiskey. Maybe I can swing round to it for St. Patrick’s Day 2026.
