Redbreast 15 Year Old Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey

In 1857, W&A Gilbey Co. was founded in a basement cellar at the corner of Oxford Street and Berwick in London. By the turn of the century, the company – a wine and spirits merchant – held one of the largest stocks of maturing whiskey in its inventory, and had expanded to Dublin, Belfast and Edinburgh. In 1912, Gilbeys began selling a 12 year old whiskey named Redbreast. The name was a reference to the Robin Redbreast (a type of bird) and is attributed to the Chairman of Gilberys, who was an avid ornithologist.

Today, Redbreast 15 Year Old Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey continues to pay homage to the legacy of Gilbey and its European origins. The whiskey is crafted from a marriage of malted and unmalted barley, which are milled and mashed before being triple-distilled through traditional copper-pot stills. The inclusions of unmalted barley in the whiskey’s mashbill, along with the tradition of triple distillation, are uniquely Irish approaches to producing whiskey.

Following distillation, the whiskey is matured in a combination of casks that were previously used to mature Spanish Oloroso sherry and bourbon. After a 15-year slumber, the whiskey is bottled without the use of chill filtration. As a result, the whiskey has a delicate aroma of berries, buttery toast and caramel. The aroma gives way to bold and vibrant notes of dark fruits, milk chocolate, coffee and figs, and leads to a spicy finish accented by raisins and oak.

Redbreast 15 Year Old Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey earned a score of 92 points from Whisky Advocate, which called it bold and masculine. In addition, it was called “Liquid Gold”by Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible, and earned the Double Gold Medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2013. Proof66 said that Redbreast 15 was “one of the most perfect whiskeys we’ve ever come across.”