Press Release

St Booley – The Finest Expression of Irish Whiskey

The stills at Blackwater Distillery came to life in February 2015, and just two months later we are thrilled to present St Booley, the finest expression of the distillers art, and our first 10 year old whiskey.

Lismore Castle
Lismore Castle

Sandwiched between mountain and sea, the soft West Waterford climate is ideal for making and maturing whiskey, but we are far enough from the sea for it not to have too much of an effect.

After carefully selecting casks, we only pick the ones that offer the purest expression of Irish Whiskey. Our barrels are made from real logs, which of course used to be real trees, so they grew in the woods and are full of nature. But that isn’t enough for us, we ensure that each and every one of our casks used to hold something else; something to give our Irish whiskey that Irish whiskey colour.

Our original, innovative, select, small batch, hand-selected, artisan, super-premium, single malt Irish Whiskey is named after St Booley, the patron saint of third-party distilling, who probably never existed and even if he did, lived nowhere near our industrial estate. For no good reason, we’ve named this first expression ‘The Lismore Cask’.

St Booley dressed up as St Patrick
St Booley dressed up as St Patrick

After careful selection, each premium cask is hand-loaded by a forklift onto a Euro pallet which our master distiller has shipped to a place where they bottle, and that sort of stuff. If we were big enough we’d ship it abroad for bottling, like the big boys do, not because it’s cheap but rather to reflect the fact that St Booley worked on the missions.

We super-double mature each drop of whiskey for weeks on end in a whole other barrel, this gives us something to talk about and gives cut-and-paste bloggers something to cut and paste.

Apart from all the enzymes used during distillation, the ones no one ever mentions, the only thing added is pure spring-like water, which runs from an ancient Celtic artisan well buried deep under some tarmac. We just let the council polish it, until it runs in a Waterford-crystal-like fountain from the reverse osmosis machine; St Booley then is as pure an expression of the ‘water of life’ as you can get.

Did I mention our irrelevant brand story? No, didn’t think so. It’s just like everyone else’s irrelevant brand story, except instead of a irrelevant place/politician/Oirish surname, we have a saint… What… Has it been done? Shit. Well it’s too late, the labels are printed and for years it worked for both Dunnes Stores and M&S, so feck it!

Why pay €40 for a bottle of Bushmills or Cooley’s finest, when you could pay twice as much for a bottle of St Booley?

If you’re Irish, or even know where Ireland is on the map, this is a dream you can share. Become part of the cliche and remember our catchphrase: You’d be a Knob Creek to drink St. Booley.

ENDS

Note to editor: This blog post will self-destruct on April 2nd.