single pot still whisky is an Irish specialty, made in pot stills at a single distillery from a mix of malted and unmalted barley (until the 1950s, it also included relatively small proportions of oats and rye or wheat). It became the predominant Irish style when the British government imposed a malt tax in 1785. The economic burden resulting from this tax would have crippled the large Irish distilleries. Mixing malted and unmalted barley avoided this. It also led to the creation of a style regarded as the gold standard in terms of quality in the nineteenth century. On the strength of this rich but smooth style, Irish distillers were able to resist blending with column-still grain whisky until the middle of the twentieth century. See whisky, grain. The style almost died in the late twentieth century, only to make a decisive return in the twenty-first.
A single pot still whisky will use a mash bill of 60:40 unmalted to malted barley (there must be by law at least 30 percent of each grain, and no more than 5 percent of any other grain), given a long fermentation, and then double or (usually) triple distilled. The use of unmalted barley adds a fat, unctuous quality to the spirit along with a crisp acidic bite on the back palate. Brands include Redbreast, Green Spot, and Powers John’s Lane.
McGuire, E. B. Irish Whisky. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, 1973.
By: Dave Broom