I’ve been back in Minnesota for almost a week now, but let’s do another couple of Irish whiskeys to close out the month. Here is another from a producer that I had not heard of before I bought a miniature at the Celtic Whiskey Shop in Dublin. I don’t mean to suggest that this indicates obscurity: indeed, Lambay is available in the US. It’s just that I know very little about the Irish whiskey scene, which seems to have expanded quite a bit in the last 10 years or so. As per their website, Lambay Whiskey launched in 2018. Lambay is not a distillery. All their whiskeys are sourced—where from is not mentioned, and nor have I seen a reference to age. The spirit is triple-distilled (always?), and then matured in bourbon casks before a final finish in cognac casks. Why cognac? The company is a collaboration between an Irish concern and Camus, the well-known cognac producer. Once in the cognac casks, the whiskey finishes maturing on Lambay Island (hence the name), just off the coast of Dublin. Their website lists some five regular releases. Of these, the Single Malt, Single Cask Strength is bottled not just at cask strength but from a single cask in each release. You would think this would make it easy to identify the release my miniature is from but there have been at least two casks bottled at 56.5%: casks 4613 and 2545. So it’s from one of those (or maybe another)—the label on the miniature does not list the bottling date or batch number. Anyway, let’s see what it’s like. Continue reading →