Whiskey Of The Week: Midleton Silent Distillery Collection Chapter 6
It was just a couple of months ago, as I write this, that the venerable Bushmills distillery announced the release of the oldest Irish single malt whiskey ever bottled — a 46-year-old sherried malt almost the color of Coca-Cola, with a suggested retail price of $12,500. It was a very big deal... but only a few weeks went by before it was upstaged by the sixth and final release in the Midleton Very Rare Silent Distillery Collection, a single pot still whiskey aged for a cool half-century.
Now, single pot still whiskey is not the same as single malt whiskey. 'Single malt' refers to a whiskey consisting entirely of malted barley, with distillate from a single distillery. Single pot still whiskeys, while also coming from a single distillery, contain a mixture of malted and unmalted barley, as well as other grains such as oats. So both Bushmills and Midleton can proudly boast of being the oldest ever in their respective categories.
But a nice-round half century of aging is a little... sexier, I suppose, than 46 years. And there's also the source of the whiskeys in question. Bushmills is, obviously, still a going concern — in fact it's the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in the world, dating back to 1608. Midleton also survives, its distillery home to seven of Ireland's best-known whiskey brands, including Jameson, Redbreast, and Powers. But the whiskey from the Silent Distillery Collection was distilled at the Old Midleton distillery, which opened for business exactly 200 years ago, in 1825, and shut its doors for good in 1975 (it now serves as a visitors' center for Jameson). Chapter Six is in fact, according to the brand, the last of the Old Midleton whiskey to be bottled. Which, in part, explains why a bottle of this stuff will run you a cool $60,000, which makes $12,500 for Bushmills' 46-year-old seems almost a bargain.
Suitable for display: the last "new" whiskey we'll ever see from the Old Midleton distillery is entitled to elaborate trappings.
Given how long Irish whiskey has been a going concern, it's fair to wonder why the longest-aged Irish whiskey is 'only' 50 years old. After all, even second-tier distilleries in Scotland have released their share of 50-year-old bottlings in the last several years, and both Glenlivet (through independent bottler Gordon & MacPhail) and the Macallan have pushed the envelope with 80-year-olds. The sad fact of the matter is that Irish whiskey as a whole was in decline through almost all of the 20th century. It all but flatlined in the 1970s, when only two distilleries were still producing it — one of which was the replacement for Old Midleton. It wasn't until the late 1980s that a faint heartbeat was detected, and there wasn't much supply or demand for extra-aged Irish whiskeys until the 21st century, when the category once again picked up steam, and also picked up interest from serious whiskeyphiles.
The last 'new' whiskey we'll ever see from Old Midleton was distilled by Max Crockett, one of the seminal figures in Irish whiskey history, in what at the time was the world's largest pot still. As you can probably guess by the fact that this is Chapter Six, Midleton has released five previous 'chapters' in the Very Rare Silent Distillery Collection, aged 45-49 years and finished in a variety of refill bourbon and refill sherry casks (meaning they'd previously been used more than once). For the final bottling, the extraordinary step was taken to assemble a special barrel using the staves and heads from barrels that aged Chapters 1-5. That's basically like taking pieces from five different jigsaw puzzles and figuring out a way to put them together in some coherent order. Ger Buckley, a fifth-generation cooper and Midleton's current master cooper, somehow managed the feat. The whiskey was married in this special cask for six months.
Whether the fortunate few who buy a bottle will want to open it is a reasonable question, given the price tag. For those who want to know what it tastes like without popping the top on the hand-blown Waterford crystal decanter in which the whiskey is encased....
Bottled at a surprisingly strong cask strength of 53% ABV, it's obvious that, notes of dry oak and leather, this spirit is no spring chicken. But it's not overly tannic, and the dryness is offset by lush, lingering dark fruit notes — think dried pear and apricot. I've heard that the whiskey was originally laid down in a combination of refill bourbon and refill sherry casks, and I've also heard that it was entirely ex-bourbon casks. Either one seems plausible, though I would expect more orange and raisin notes from a sherry cask. Regardless, it's quite the elegant dram, with plenty of depth, this is one to savor regardless of the price.
Even if you choose not to drink your $60,000 investment — about 200 of which are available worldwide, according to the brand — it's still pretty to look at. The aforementioned Waterford crystal decanter is housed inside a bespoke case made by Irish artist John Galvin, who has worked on other high-profile whiskies such as Glen Grant's 70 year old Devotion. The case features five rare Irish woods previously used for the cases of the first five chapters of the Silent Distillery Collection; the sixth wood used is a blue bird's-eye maple. With gold trim and leather interior, it sounds more like the interior of a car than a box made for holding whiskey. But since this whiskey costs as much as a car, it all kind of makes sense.
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