Q&A With Brian Nation, Midleton’s Chief Distiller

By Emma Briones

Brian Nation wasn’t interested in working in a distillery. That probably sounds incredible, but Nation himself claim “It happened almost by accident.”

Despite stumbling into it, working in whiskey was the best accident that could had happened to him. He joined Irish Distillers after graduating with an engineering degree and has risen to become their  Master Distiller. Luckily for him, he got to learn his job from one of the best in modern times: Barry Crockett.

On my last visit to Dublin I got the chance to sit with him and talk about whiskey, innovation and the new generation of whiskey distillers.

EB: The micro-distillery at Midleton has a new distiller, Henry Donnelly.

BN: The micro-distillery itself has three functions and number one is to train new distillers. Everyone who comes to learn is there to really know why they do each single thing they do in the process. Henry will be very busy training people.

EB: And the other two?

BN: Number two is experimentation. And obviously, Henry is going to be part of that. I’m working with him to try to develop different types of distillates. As his experience goes and his knowledge goes, he will be training other distillers as well. And, finally, number three is giving people that visit the Jameson distillery in Middleton, the possibility to see a real distillery.

EB: What was it like to be trained by Barry Crockett?

BN: I was very fortunate to have such an icon of whiskey as a mentor. You learned a lot from Barry, and probably didn’t question so much why certain things were done. You just said that is the way it is done, and that’s it. With the new generation of distillers coming through that has changed.

EB: What difference do you see in is this new generation of distillers?

BN: There is a lot of why. “But why?”

EB: Isn’t that challenging?

BN: It actually does get you to become more innovative, because questions are being asked. “Why don’t we do it this way?” and then you stop and say “OK, that’s right, let’s try it.” And having a micro-distillery allows us to do that.

EB: And when you start experimenting, where does the inspiration come from?

BN: It can come from a number of places, really. One of the places that we began looking is in the archive that Carol [Quinn] is looking after. She found the notebook from John Jameson and it gave us reasons to use different cereal types.

EB: Just working with old recipes?

BN: We also do a lot of market research with consumers to see what kind of flavor profiles they’re looking for. Then we try to deliver that. Also, working alongside Billy Leighton and Kevin O’ Donnell, we are trying to come up with different ideas. Different combinations of distilled flavors, copper flavors, cask flavors…

EB: A collaborative approach.

BN: For me that’s what makes working for Jameson so unique and so brilliant. There is so many people passionate about what we do. So many people with so many interests to try and innovate that ideas can come from anywhere.

EB: Is there this moment in the shower when you say “Oh, I want to try this?”

BN: Well, not this morning, it was too early.

EB: Is it possible to innovate while keeping the Irish whiskey DNA?

BN: We have to stay true to our roots, to our heritage, our story and our culture, with where we come from. I think that we are progressive, very innovative, but we are not forgetting where we came from. There will always be that true Jameson DNA coming out of it.

EB: How do you manage to keep it balanced?

BN: It is always done in such a collaborative approach, there’s always someone there to say “Hey, hold a second, let’s look at that.” We’re open enough to be very innovative in our conversations but we also know where to drop it along the way.

EB: What will this innovation bring to Jameson in 10-15 years?

BN: I’d like to think that the innovation will continue at the same rate and maybe even faster. Therefore, the portfolio will expand.

EB: New limited editions or maybe something bigger?

BN: I can not give away all of our secrets… I think the best thing to say is “watch this space.”

EB: Will it be something from the micro-distillery?

BN: I’d like to think that in 15 years time we will be producing in the main plant something that from the micro-distillery that really wowed us. That would be the ultimate for me.

EB: That might be your dream dram?

BN: A dream dram for me would be any whisky that can really truly showcase the distillate characteristics. The heart, the grain of the distillate… That really showcases the act of distillation.

And that’s what we try to do.