Marriage of Malt – ‘Spirit of St James’
We are very proud to announce that we have secured the last 180 bottles of the very special st James’s distillery edition Marriage of Malt Whiskey. 888 bottles were created by Pearse Lyons at their stunning distillery in St James’s church in Dublin. The church had been a place of worship for over 800 years, frequented by Irish pilgrims seeking blessings before making the journey to Spain, with its striking stained glass depictions of the Camino de Santiago and Santigo de Compostella Cathedral.
Pearse Lyons bought the church building out of decline and transformed it into the architectural feat it is today. Distilling exquisite spirits in their beautiful copper stills that adorn the space that was once the church’s altar.
Proud of their heritage and continuously pushing boundaries they crafted 888 bottles of the Marriage of Malt. The first confirmed vatted malt produced in Ireland. This limited edition run was crafted with the distillery’s connection to the Camino de Santiago at the heart of the project. Aged in ex Pedro Ximénez casks the natural amber colour of the whiskey is celebrated by the glass decanter adorned with the shell of Saint James and minimalist gold detailing.
Q&A with Pearse Lyons Distiller, Connor Ryan.
Why is it called a marriage of malt?
This is a vatted malt whiskey (see below) that is a marriage of casks of our own distilled whiskey and sourced whiskey (Cooley). As it’s a Marriage of Casks of Malt and our Distillery is in a church, we called this edition – Marriage of Malt
What is a Vatted Malt
There are different terms for this that can get used, Vatted Malt / Pure Malt / All Malt or Blended Malt as it is now referred to in Scotland is a common style of whiskey in Scotland & Japan.
- A Single Malt is a Whiskey made exclusively from malted barley, from one distillery.
- A Vatted Malt is a Whiskey made exclusively from malted barley but with whiskeys married together from two or more distillery sources. So it’s a 100% Malt whiskey made from more than one source. Vatted malts, like blends, mix a variety of single malts together in an attempt to get a totally new flavour profile.
Why did you release a Vatted Malt?
A Vatted Malt is till now is an unknown / unexplored category in Irish whiskey with no known confirmed vatted malts being created in the past but it’s possible there has been.
The existing categories/Styles as you know are: Single Malt, Single Grain, Single Potstill and a Blend (a combination of any or all of 3 styles)
Until now vatted malts have not been explored as a category in Irish Whiskey. This could have been due to there being only a couple of sources of malt whiskey available. Pearse Lyons started distilling Irish Whiskey in 2012. From this stock we have previously released a single malt, we use our own malt in our blended whiskey and now we have been able to use our own distilled malt in an innovative way by exploring this new category as part of the re-evolution of Irish Whiskey.
When Pearse Lyons started distilling in Lexington in 2008 he was the first person to produce Single Malt Whiskey in Kentucky in nearly 100 years (since 1919). This spirt of innovation and exploration of possibilities outside of the known norms is what is at the heart of who we are as a distillery. It is with this spirit of innovation we have explored this new category of Irish Whiskey.
Why not Just do a Single Malt if you have it?
Some of the biggest Irish Whiskey brands don’t have their own produced whiskey in any of their offerings. By us using a sourced malt with our own malt it doesn’t take from our story it ads to it. Even in Scotland where vatted/blended malts would be common, it wouldn’t be common for a distillery with their own spirit to mix their whiskey with the whiskey of another distillery. We did this to show that there is always more ways to evolve as a producer and to innovate.
The trend these days is to be the “first” to use a weirdest and newest wood for maturation/finishing. We took a step back with this whiskey and thought how else can we deliver an interesting offering to our customers. By using a source malt inclusion with our own malt it was a different way to present our whiskey to the market and another method for flavour differentiation.
Why 888 bottles?
We used this as our number for the distillery edition as it was a fitting number because:
First 8 – We are in Dublin 8
Second 8 – There has been a church on the distillery site for 800 plus years
Third 8 – 8 is the infinity symbol turned at 90 degrees, as infinity can be a symbol of marriage we have it on our marriage of Malt
Why does it say 2019 on the bottle?
This is the first of our distillery editions. We plan on having a year stated on annual distillery editions every year that will be released in July; to mark our opening to the public birthday. As we didn’t bring one out until now, we started with 2019 on the bottle so we can have 2020 on our new addition this year and it will be a different whiskey bottling to this Marriage of Malt release.
We may also bring out other special distillery editions throughout the year but only the annual version will have the year printed on the label.
What is in the bottle?
It is a No Age Statement Whiskey with whiskey ranging from 6-15yrs released at 44%abv
Vatting make up for – Marriage of Malt:
65% – Our own Carlow distilled Pearse 6yr Malt (so close to being 7 but it wasn’t quite there!) aged in ex-Town Branch Bourbon barrels & finished for 1 year in PX Hogsheads.
27% – Sourced 13yr Bourbon aged Malt that was recasked in 2014 into ex Town Branch Bourbon barrels.
8% – Sourced 15yr Bourbon aged Malt that was recasked in 2014 into ex-Town Branch Bourbon barrels, that was then recasked into a PX Hogshead for a 9 Month finish.
NOTES:
- This whiskey like all Pearse Whiskeys is Non-Chill Filtered and presented at Natural cask color.
- PX is short for Pedro Ximénez. It is a name used for naturally sweet Sherry wine from Spain.
- The reason we used PX casks for this first release was to link in the Spanish heritage of St James with a Whiskey exclusive for St James.
- This whiskey is a harmonious marriage of the finest Malt whiskeys. This marriage of Malt showcases both our own whiskey and our dedication to the craft of working with the best barrels for optimal spirit maturation.
