“Fulfilling my father’s dream, his last idea is the rest of my life. I don’t come from a whiskey dynasty. But I do intend to build one.”
— Jay Bradley, The Independent
The Craft Irish Whiskey Co. is the embodiment of my obsession with whiskey and crafting whiskeys of exception. Born over a whiskey-fuelled chat with my late father, it is a personal endeavour and one that fires me up every single day. Like me, it is proudly Irish; harnessing the very best of Ireland’s people, ingredients and passion to craft whiskeys that honour the country.
Our mission
We’re a company on a mission, driven by obsessive perfectionism to expertly craft the finest whiskeys and elevate the experience to new highs. We honour the past; the traditional skills that saw Irish whiskey soar for over 500 years. But we also disrupt. Not content to play by the rules, we’ve reinvigorated a centuries-old industry to craft whiskeys of such rarity, such unrivalled complexity, they’re already winning awards and breaking records.
Disrupting Tradition
Our whiskeys are different. Where others add water after maturation to bring the whiskey down to a palatable level, we saw that adding it before would allow the water and spirit to both take on the deep, rich flavours of the wood. In other whiskeys, only a fraction of the end product has been allowed the time to mature in the barrel - it’s certainly a more economical process but, for me, it meant a large part of the whiskey was missing that key maturation stage. So instead of diluting a concentrated spirit at the end as all others do, we add the water at the start, allowing it to marry with the spirit and draw out the caramelised notes and rich rounded tones of the barrel. The whiskey emerges from the barrel at cask strength, without the need to add water so the flavours and aromas remain as intensely vibrant as they were intended.
We under-fill barrels to allow more oxidation and maturation. It’s not a cheap way to do it - just as adding water before maturation means more barrels, more storage, and more evaporation, under-filling means even more barrels and storage. But it adds an undeniable depth and full mouthfeel that sets our whiskeys apart from their peers.
Using premium bourbon barrels for the first fill imbues the whiskey with a foundation of deep, rich tones of vanilla and oak. But then we get creative, carefully selecting barrels for the next stages of the whiskey’s journey. Our rare, small-batch spirits are finished in equally rare, carefully sourced barrels, including French Oak Madeira and Pedro Ximenez Sherry casks. It takes the skill of an artist, tasting the spirit and deciding how its flavours will marry with another casks’s notes. Continuous tasting allows us to take that whiskey on a journey that adds intrigue, a story, and a wealth of flavour. It’s this obsessive attention to detail and preoccupation with flavour that has led IWSC competition judges to describe our whiskey as ‘enchanting’.
Learn how we disrupt tradition to craft whiskey of exception here
Perfecting the Experience
This obsession with perfection continues throughout our work. We don’t simply bottle our whiskeys and bid them farewell. We believe whiskeys of this distinction deserve an experience to match.
Much like a fine dining experience, even the most exceptional food needs the right surrounds to highlight its beauty, flavour and aroma. Dining on Michelin star food in an alley behind the restaurant would be a markedly different experience to dining in a softly lit, beautifully appointed, 5-star restaurant with ultra professional service staff. So while great food is the focal point for a chef, much like the perfect whiskey is ours, the experience must be equally perfect. A standard bottle and a cardboard box just won't do.
Inspired by my father’s skill as a master craftsman, our whiskeys are presented in handcrafted boxes that tell a story. From a 45 degree angle in the wood grain that leads the eye to the clasp, to the lime-soda glass and the textured handle of the pipette, each and every detail is poured over, obsessively, until perfect.
Award-winning & Record-breaking
And this obsessive pursuit of perfection is already paying off. Our first release, The Devil’s Keep, has won awards across the board; a Gold medal at the IWSC Competition, a prestigious Gold A’Design Award, a win at the Luxury Packaging Awards. Our second release, The Emerald Isle, became the most expensive whiskey in the world when the first of seven collections sold at auction for $2,000,000. Our third release, The Brollach, won two of the highest awards bestowed on a whiskey within weeks of its launch. It was our mission to elevate Irish whiskey to a world stage once more, and the world is certainly taking notice.
