The outstanding contribution of Helen Mulholland, Master Blender at Old Bushmills, has been recognised in an important industry award from Drinks Ireland and the Irish Whiskey Association.

She has gained the Chairman’s Award in a special virtual ceremony held recently in Dublin and was among six to be described as “legends of Irish whiskey”.

Drinks Ireland is the representative association for the Irish whiskey industry. The association’s Chairman’s Awards take place biennially and were awarded this year by outgoing Chairman David Stapleton, founder of The Connacht Whiskey Company.

The awards recognise the people, distilleries and industry partners that have made an outstanding contribution to the development of the Irish whiskey industry and category.

David Stapleton said: “I am honoured to present the Chairman’s Awards to such a talented and tenacious group of people who have contributed significantly to the revival of the Irish whiskey industry. The awardees represent the dynamism and ingenuity which is central to our industry.”

Noel Sweeney, Master Distiller, Powerscourt Distillery, said: “Since I started in the industry, Irish whiskey has been turned on its head. As a Master Distiller, I am proud to be part of an innovative wave that moved Irish whiskey beyond just triple distilled, non-peated expressions. We have since seen a rapid and exciting increase in new releases of interesting, high quality Irish whiskey, with much more to follow. Our industry is one of great resilience, ingenuity confidence, and creativity, and I look forward to a bright future for Irish whiskey.”

Mr Stapleton added: “2020 has been a tough year for everyone – including the Irish whiskey industry. However, the industry has proven itself to be resilient in the past – and will do so again. After decades of decline in the 20th century, we have experienced a remarkable recovery. I am confident we will bounce back and see Irish whiskey distilleries across the country grow from strength to strength in 2021.”

Helen Mulholland has been working at Bushmills for almost 30 years and has shaped a series of successful whiskeys in the distillery’s impressive luxury portfolio of single malts and premium blends during her time as Master Blender through her careful selection of casks that produce different flavour profiles and aromas. She’s skilfully created original and winning recipes from the traditional ingredients of water, malted barley and yeast, lovingly and skilfully distilled and matured over the years at Bushmills.

This expertise and remarkable track record led to Helen being justifiably named by the influential Whisky Magazine as the first woman in its Hall of Fame, in 2018.

A longstanding focus on innovation and quality have led to Bushmills become among Northern Ireland’s leading exporters and most revered global brands.

“Creating new products has become vitally important because of the growing popularity, particularly in the US, of Irish whiskey and the emergence of a raft of smaller distilleries throughout the island. Irish whiskey is now the fastest growing brown spirit. We are determined to play our part in ensuring its continuing growth. Bushmills is a premium Irish whiskey and we aim to maintain that standing and to produce something that anyone can enjoy,” she says.

“Exploring different cask formulations, different woods, and new recipes every day makes Bushmills a hugely exciting place to be at the moment,” she adds. She recently introduced the acclaimed Causeway Collection from Bushmills.

The UK’s best mince pies are officially available at SPAR in Northern Ireland.

Beating competition from supermarkets across the UK, judges of the BBC Good Food magazine have hailed SPAR Luxury Mince Pies as winners of the mince pie category for the first time in the 2020 BBC Good Food Christmas Taste Awards.

 The judges said: “These have a lovely golden colour and crumbly, buttery pastry. The filling is sweet and jammy, with nice big chunks of plump, soaked fruit and a good hit of citrus from the candied peel.”

 Myles Mersh, SPAR UK brand manager, said: “This is a great achievement for SPAR and in particular for our SPAR own label range. Our SPAR Luxury Mince Pies are exceptional quality and we are delighted that the judges of the BBC Good Food magazine were able to taste that. At only £2 for a pack of six, we hope they will bring some joy to thousands of homes in the run up to Christmas.”

Christine Hayes, BBC Good Food magazine Editor-in-Chief, added: “Getting the most for your money will be more important than ever this Christmas so be sure to check our winners before planning your big shop. It’s good to see some great value wins in this year’s taste test, all blind-tested.”

The accolade follows SPAR NI’s own brand Desserts by The Kitchen picking up six Great Taste Awards in the past two years. The sticky toffee pudding and bread and butter pudding were awarded two stars, with the chocolate sponge pudding, Bramley apple crumble and the rhubarb crumble awarded one star in 2019. This year, the chocolate brownie pudding picked up one star.

Neal Kelly, Fresh Foods director at Henderson Wholesale, owner of the SPAR brand in Northern Ireland said these accolades further heighten their famous for fresh award-winning food credentials; “It is fantastic to see the hard work of our fresh team come to life and be acknowledged by the top palettes in the UK. We are very proud to offer locally made desserts for the festive season, alongside our SPAR UK mince pies providing a tasty end to Christmas dinner for all.” SPAR Luxury Mince Pies are available in SPAR NI for £2.00.

 Judges said: “These pies have a lovely golden colour and crumbly, buttery pastry. The filling is sweet and jammy, with chunky pieces of plump, soaked fruit and a good hit of citrus from the candied peel.”

Five new bottled cocktails have been launched by Shortcross Gin in a new development for the innovation-led and multi-award craft distillery in Northern Ireland. The luxury cocktails have been created to be enjoyed at home.

The cocktails are based on those made for visitors to the company’s Rademon Estate distillery at Crossgar in county Down, Fiona Boyd Armstrong, Shortcross Gin managing director, explains.

“Making Shortcross Gin Cocktails has always been a big part of what we do at the distillery’” she says. We’ve been makingand tasting Shortcross cocktails over many months but since lockdown all tours at the distillery have stopped. They’ve always been very well received by those on our tours and many people have asked if they could buy them. There was clearly a market for bottled cocktails.

“These requests with comments from friends and family led us to decide to develop and make bottled cocktails readily  available through our website and our international network of distributors.

The five cocktails feature unique recipes created by Fiona and husband David Boyd Armstrong, the Master Distiller, from Shotcross Gin are: Bramble; Gin Old Fashioned; Modern Martinez; Classic Aviation; and Elderflower Negroni. 

The novel cocktails, the first produced by a Northern Ireland distillery, were developed over a period of three months involving extensive tastings and market research.

“Our choice of flavours is based on the cocktails which we like and those especially popular with visitors to the distillery,” Fiona continues. “While I love the Bramble, David’s favourite is the Elderflower Negroni. Our objective was to create original and luxury cocktails that could be enjoyed at home as well as in bars. Each bottle contains two serves,” adds Fiona.

Shortcross Gin was the first craft gin produced in Northern Ireland in more than a century when it was launched in 2012. The distillery has since won over 30 high-profile industry awards including UK Great Taste, the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and the International Gin Awards.Shortcross Gin is now exported to more than 30 markets worldwide. The company also produced a pink gin and is developing a new single malt Irish whiskey.

The Meat Merchant, the retail business within the multi-award winning Hannan Meats in Northern Ireland, is reaching out to lovers of premium meats by launching a new doorstep delivery service, a new direction for the operation.

The company, which is based at Moira in county Armagh, has introduced a range of hampers packed with its products including its renowned Himalayan aged beef and lamb and sugar-pit bacon which can be ordered from its recently launched e-commerce site for delivery throughout the UK and Ireland.

David Rosbotham, general manager of Hannan Meats, explaining the decision to launch the new retail expansion, says: “Our new Hannan Hampers are aimed at those who can’t get into our shop in Moira.

“While calling into the shop to select from our full range is still best method, if this isn’t possible for many people, especially those in Great Britain, to make it to us, we are now bringing the Meat Merchant to their doorsteps.

“The move was also influenced by the growing number of people throughout the UK keen to enjoy our meats which have won more Great Taste Awards for premium quality and outstanding flavours than any other food company in the UK.

“Over the years, we’ve also fielded calls and emails from people in Britain about the availability of our meats there. We are now set up to provide this potentially very important service through our new e-commerce site,” he adds.

The company, headed by respected meat industry leader Peter Hannan, is initially offering a limited quantity and selection of hampers comprising of some of its most popular award winning food. “It will be food that we know customers will enjoy. Everything is packed for convenience and is suitable for home freezing,” he adds.

The Meat Merchant, he continues, intends to expand choice of products and the hampers available “in the coming weeks and months ahead”.

The hampers will also be available in the Republic of Ireland through the partnership between Hannan Meats and James Whelan, one of the most successful butchery businesses there.

The Meat Merchant is among the most innovative meat operations on the island of Ireland. The company, a major supplier of a wide range of quality meats to hotels and restaurants throughout the UK and many parts of Europe for over 30 years, has expanded its operation over the past year especially in retail.

In addition to marketing its own meats and most recently quality sauces, the Meat Merchant lists an extensive range of artisan foods from other producers in Northern Ireland.

Woodlab Distillery, the maker of the multi-award winning Symphonia Gin range, is developing a new distillery complex in Moy, Co Tyrone.

The company, formed in 2016 by Dr Ulrich Dyer, who has over 30 years’ experience as a scientist in the global pharmaceutical industry, has moved to the new distillery after outgrowing a converted garage at his home in Benburb, Co Tyrone.

Around £120,000 is being invested by Dr Dyer in the development of the distillery, warehousing, a gin school and visitor centre. The investment has already created three new jobs which have been supported by Invest Northern Ireland.

Outlining this important investment for the small batch distillery, Dr Dyer said: “We decided to develop a new distillery because we had outgrown our existing premises in Benburb and needed the new space to enable us to increase distilling and storage capacity in response to the growing success of our three gins, especially in the Northern Ireland marketplace.

“The new distillery gives us greater scope to develop our science-led development of spirits using our unique process which is based on cold distillation and microwave extraction technology. These techniques help to ensure that the rich yet delicate flavours of the local botanicals we use in gin production are extracted efficiently and preserved in our spirits,” Dr Dyer adds.

This modern technology, he continues, has been proven to be the most efficient in terms of energy use. “It’s the most environmentally friendly process because only two percent of the energy required for traditional distilling is used in these processes.

“I believe that Woodlab is the only distillery in the world using these combined techniques. The technology is based on my scientific research in the international pharmaceutical industry on product development,” adds Dr Dyer.

Welcoming the investment, Ethna McNamee, Invest NI’s Western Regional Manager said:

Welcoming the investment, Ethna McNamee, Invest NI’s Western Regional Manager said: “We have been working in partnership with the team at Woodlab Distillery over the last number of years to support the growth of its business.

“This has included initial support through our innovation voucher programme to help refine the distilling process of its now infamous Symphonia Gin range, support to create three jobs and technical advice and marketing assistance through our Design Active Programme to help it develop its website. I’m delighted to see this support helping Woodlab open its distillery and begin to grow sales in international markets.”

Dr Dyer continues: “The support from Invest NI is invaluable and has enabled us to get the new distillery operating quickly and to develop sales especially in Great Britain by means of our website. We are working with Invest NI to grow the business in our target markets, building in particular on our success of our Symphonia Dry Gin being named Champion of Champions in the Irish Gin Awards 2019.”

The small batch distillery currently produces three handcrafted gins both featuring botanicals from the area. The gins are Symphonia No.1, a dry gin, and Symphonia No. 2, a gin featuring Armagh Bramley apples sourced from local orchards, and Symphonia No 3, a Summer Fruit Cup. They have just released a special limited edition Symphonia No.4 a local apple rum.

The gins which has also won UK Great Taste Awards and Silver at the International Wine and Spirits Competition (IWSC), are currently available in local off-licences as well as bars, restaurants and hotels.

 

The Echlinville Distillery (Co. Down, Northern Ireland) is expanding its award winning Dunville’s Irish Whiskey portfolio with the release of its latest PX Cask Strength Single Cask bottling.

Dunville’s PX Cask Strength 12 Year Old Single Malt Cask 1703 is the third PX Cask Strength expression from the Dunville’s Single Cask Series.

Finished in the finest Pedro Ximénez sherry casks, bottled at 58.2% abv and limited to just 334 bottles, it will be available exclusively from The Echlinville Distillery online shop from 8pm on Friday 20 November priced £112 –  https://shop.echlinville.com/collections/whiskey/products/dunvilles-px-12-year-old-cask-strength-single-cask-1703

Jarlath Watson from Dunville’s Irish Whiskey said: “This is the third Cask Strength expression of our award winning 12 Year Old PX whiskey and the newest addition to our Single Cask Series, which showcases the very best whiskeys from our warehouses.

“Each release from the Single Cask Series offers something different, with every cask bottled at its optimum strength to deliver the stunning palate and rich mouthfeel that Dunville’s customers expect and deserve.

“Bottled at an impressive 58.2% abv – our highest strength release to date – Cask 1703 boasts notes of stewed orchard fruits, deep caramelised and syrupy stone fruits, rich warming spices and that signature Dunville’s PX candied orange grace note. It really is Christmas in a glass. It’s the perfect whiskey for the festive season.

“Since the release of our Dunville’s PX 10 Year Old back in 2012 – the whiskey with which we revived the iconic Dunville’s brand – the PX sherry cask finish has become our best known expression and is something that we do very well. Dunville’s PX Cask Strength whiskeys are now a firm fixture in our Single Cask Series and have been very well received within the Irish whiskey family.

“As the Single Cask Series continues to evolve, we look forward to future Pedro Ximénez cask releases with some interesting twists and impressive age statements.”

Dunville’s PX 12 Year Old Single Cask Whiskey, Cask 1703 is priced £112 and will be available from The Echlinville Distillery at https://shop.echlinville.com/collections/whiskey/products/dunvilles-px-12-year-old-cask-strength-single-cask-1703 from 8pm on Friday 20 November.

For delivery outside Ireland and the UK please complete our Worldwide Shipping Enquiry form at https://shop.echlinville.com/pages/worldwide-shipping-enquiry

For more information visit www.dunvilleswhiskey.com