Clontarf Classic Blend

Irish Whiskey
Purchase Price: $16
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 7.6

Clontarf Single Malt is very nearly my all-time favorite Irish Whiskey so I had high hopes for its cheaper “Little Brother” blend. Well it didn’t live up to my expectations—this is pretty dull stuff. Somewhat paradoxically, it reminds me a bit of Brennan's in the way it makes me completely forget about it only five minutes after drinking it. It also appears that this brand has gotten a facelift in the labeling department (I’ve posted a picture of the old label since that was the bottle this review is based on) and a new ad campaign geared towards twentysomething binge drinkers. Their website actually stoops to utilizing a picture of two fetching coeds clinched in a lip-lock to get the pulses of potential consumers racing. How utterly puerile. I’m not sure what else to say except that the song "The Friendly Ranger at Clontarf Castle" by Thin Lizzy is a pretty good song.

Knappogue Castle 1993

Irish Whiskey
Purchase Price: $36
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 7.8

Knappogue is an Irish single malt initially recommended to me by a bartender in an authentic Irish Pub in the authentically Irish city of Boston, so my hopes for this were as high as Carrauntoohil, but it never really scaled those dizzying heights of 3,000 feet or so. It seems really washed-out and thin to me, like a summer blouse fashioned from Irish Linen instead of the hefty Munster Rugby jersey I was anticipating. Hmmm. Retarded analogies aside, this is way too mild-mannered for me—and they’re not exactly selling it for eleven bucks, either. A surprising let-down.

Clontarf Single Malt

Irish Whiskey
Purchase Price: $26
Place of Purchase: Astor Wine and Spirits - New York, NY
Rating: 8.6

This is the best Irish Whisky I've tried to this point and that includes expensive examples like Knappogue Castle and Redbreast. (I haven't tried Connemara or Midleton yet, but we'll see) Bananas, pears and just the right amount of cake-like smoothness combine to produce a real winner. There's a lot more going on here than your average Irish Whiskey and I'm not sure if that's because it is a single malt or not. I don't think it really matters. They've recently changed the labeling on this and I hope they haven't monkeyed with the whiskey inside. It really is an exceptional pour and raises the stakes in a category this is usually congenial (meaning easy to drink) but bland (meaning too easy to drink). Superb.

Jameson

Irish Whiskey
Purchase Price: $23
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 7.9

In the eternal struggle for the hearts and minds of serious drinkers there's always been a "Big Two" in the Irish Whiskey category. The players: Jameson and Bushmill's. I like (not love) both, but I've been leaning towards Bushmill's lately. Since every bar on earth carries them, often to the exclusion of every other Irish Whiskey, you're going to have to pick one as a "go to" drink if you like Irish Whiskey. I've learned my lesson after receiving dozens of quizzical looks and hundreds of outright "no's" over the years when asking bartenders if their place of employment carried Powers. Jameson's is certainly easy to drink, it's smooth and sweet but I have to dock it a notch for their overly chummy subway ad campaign that tries way too hard to be "one of us"--i.e. a New York subway commuter--and fails in every regard. Take a look at it and judge for yourself exactly how much it inspires you to run out and buy a case. In sum, I do drink Jameson fairly often, but always at the bars. At home, you'll more than likely find a bottle of Powers hanging around.

Merry's

Irish Whiskey
Purchase Price: $15
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 8.1

A real find. I think this was $15 at Warehouse but it's got some genuinely becoming sweetness to it—a real charmer. It reminds me of holding hands and talking about Samuel Beckett and Brendan Behan with some green-eyed, dark-haired lass with skin as pale as moonlight. Much better than spending time in a borstal, I would say!

Kilbeggan

Irish Whiskey
Purchase Price: $18
Place of Purchase: Astor Wine and Spirits - New York, NY
Rating: 7.7

Another outsider in the always competitive Irish stakes, Kilbeggan is distilled by Cooley, touted by their own website as “Ireland’s last independent distiller.” In fact Chrissy Hynde wrote an entire album about this place entitled, appropriately enough, “Last of the Independents.” I think it sold about as good the follow-up to “Pac-Man Fever” did. In any case, Cooley produces some really interesting whiskies, the most famous of which is probably the Connemara Peated Single Malt. Well, Kilbeggan is a blend and not a very interesting one. It tastes like watered-down Powers to me and that’s drinking it neat. Irish whiskies are sometimes put upon for being a bit too airy and listless and Kilbeggan does little to provide a line of defense for that argument.

Michael Collins

Irish Whiskey
Purchase Price: $29
Place of Purchase: Astor Place Wine and Spirits - New York, NY
Rating: 7.8

Michael Collins is a high-priced new addition to the Irish Whiskey market. It comes in a bottle that really sets some new standards of elegance, but in terms of taste and degree of palate-pleasing, I don’t sense that much difference between this and your garden-variety Bushmills or Jameson. I’m also not real sure I agree with the exhuming of dead people, heroes or not, to sell alcohol. I mean, did Michael Collins have a say in any of this? He probably doesn’t care, but criminy, can’t we just let people rest in peace? Benjamin Disraeli gin, Pancho Villa tequila, H.L. Mencken rye, Boris Pasternak vodka, Bob Marley rum--where will it all end? With Johnny Bench scotch????? Heaven help us!

Brennan's

Irish Whiskey
Purchase Price: $19
Place of Purchase: Soho Wine and Spirits - New York, NY
Rating: 7.5

I had never heard of this whiskey before I saw a dusty bottle in Soho Wine and Spirits and my inquisitive nature did the rest. By evening time, I was in my room hunched over a glass. The modern-day Irish Whiskey drinker really doesn’t have a huge array of brands to choose from so it’s always good to see something new, but in the end, this just isn’t a very compelling quaff. It now holds the dubious distinction of being my least favorite Irish whiskey. Oh well, I guess something has to be!

Powers Gold Label

Irish Whiskey
Purchase Price: $21
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 8.5

In America, Powers is kind of a "cult" whiskey--I’m always hearing about how it's the biggest selling Irish whiskey in Ireland, but really, why should I care about that or what the best-selling French wine is in France or what the most popular Russian vodka is in Russia? What I need to know is if what's in the glass in front of me is any good. And the answer to that is that Powers comes through with flying colors every time. Every bottle of this I buy lasts about two weeks--I can't keep away from it. Powers is as soft and sweet-tempered as that “thing” that appears in the Snuggle fabric softener ads and every bit as appealing to lonely housewives. It is my favorite blended Irish Whiskey and pretty much renders Bushmills and Jameson completely extraneous.