It appears that Irish whiskey is undergoing something of a renaissance at the moment. Following William Grant & Sons' purchase of Tullamore Dew almost exactly a year ago, the next big news came last month, when Pernod Ricard launched two new 'single pot still' whiskeys, the first in the recently-named Irish whiskey sub-category.

Then, last week, Pernod's Irish Distillers unit announced that, as consumers' thirst for market-leader Jameson continues to grow, it has brought forward plans to double capacity at its Midleton distillery in the country.

However, while Jameson grabs the headlines, it is these single pot still Irish whiskeys that are getting more of Irish Distillers' attention. Also last week, just-drinks' deputy editor, Chris Mercer, headed over to Midleton to hear about the unit's plans, and to sample (naturally) two new offerings from the group.

While not directly comparable to Scotch single malt in terms of production processes, Irish Distillers wants single pot still Irish whiskeys to play a similar role to that of single malts in Scotland. Namely, to offer consumers a purer expression of a particular style and to give them a wider range of premium Irish whiskies to explore and move up to.

With Pernod claiming to have a 22-year launch programme for single pot still whiskies, it will be interesting to see how the concept develops.

We're almost there, wine-folk. The London International Wine Fair kicks off a week tomorrow and, as ever, just-drinks will be there in force. If you haven't signed up for our industry briefing on 'The State of the (UK) Nation', then head over here. We've got an excellent panel together to consider the results of our annual survey – some of which, I assure you, will be very surprising.

Also, if you're tweeting in the build-up to – and during – the exhibition, make sure you hash-tag LIWF, to appear on the monitors on our stand. As ever, we'll be tweeting like crazy about all things drinks, so follow us here.

Until next time...

Olly Wehring
Managing Editor
Web: http://www.just-drinks.com
Email: editor@just-drinks.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/just_drinks