M Whiskey
Twin Spirits was founded in 2014 by Michelle Winchester and began production in 2016. The distillery has a cocktail room and coffee shop on site, and is often a place where local music can be found. The 100 gallon copper pot stills were made in Kentucky and the distillery uses a grain-to-glass approach for most of their products. The M Whiskey is the distillery’s only sourced product, finished in ex-red wine casks from local Alexis Bailly Vineyards. The desire was to produce a port cask finish, and the dessert wines were the closest approximation available. The M Whiskey, along with the other spirits from the distillery, are available in 375 ml bottles.
Royal Brackla 12 Year
The Royal Brackla holds a claim to fame that few Scottish distilleries can match, which is the royal warrant it was granted in 1835 by King William IV that allowed the distillery to use the “royal” adjective as part of the name (the other two are Royal Lochnagar in 1848 and the now closed Glenury Royal). Founded in 1817, Royal Brackla has run mostly uninterrupted for over 200 years. Like many distilleries, it shut down briefly due to world wars or market surpluses and has gone through several changes in ownership but has never been dormant for long. Its output has long gone into blends and thus not received much individual attention. That changed in 2015, however, when current owner Dewar’s released a range of single malts. This Royal Brackla 12 is from the spring of 2020, when the core range was relaunched to comprise a 12, 18 and 21 year age statements.
Writers Tears
Originally created as a boutique blend in 2009, Writer’s Tears is a vatting of 60% single malt and 40% single pot stills, containing no grain except barley. In the subsequent decade, the whiskey has garnered various industry awards and mentions by luminaries such as Jim Murray and Ian Buxton. Writer’s Tears is likely a blend of whiskies from the Cooley and Midleton distilleries. There being only a handful of operating Irish distilleries, though more are in the works, it is quite normal for brands to source their whiskey to order and blend, finish or otherwise finish producing the final product. Like Canadian whisky, finding the source of the actual contents of the bottle can sometimes be challenging. Walsh Distillery began its own distillation in 2016, so we assume that as production continues and their house stock ages, the company’s portfolio will contain more of their own product.