Keeper’s Heart American Pot Still Whiskey Review

By Richard Thomas

Rating: B+

With Saint Patrick’s Day just around the bend, the Minneapolis-based O’Shaughnessy Distilling Co. has added something singularly Irish to their regular line up: a whiskey that would qualify as Irish single pot still were it not for being made in America. Pot still whiskey is the signature style of Ireland, and a narrow survivor of the Great Whiskey Crash of the 1970s.

The turn away from whiskey by America’s Boomer generation hit the Irish hardest of all, since the Irish domestic market is tiny and their whiskey industry was overwhelmingly dependent on exports to the US (it is somewhat more diversified today, but the US remains the single largest market for Irish Whiskey). At one point, the Irish industry contracted down to just two distilleries: Bushmills, which while definitely Irish is actually in the United Kingdom; and the New Midleton Distillery owned by Irish Distillers, which encapsulated all the remaining surviving brands.

Pot still whiskey is a style which began as a response to British taxes. All whiskey in Ireland was made in pot stills in the 18th Century, so that isn’t the defining characteristic of the category. The British Crown had been wrestling with how to tax the Irish whiskey industry in a way they could actually collect, and settled on taxing malted barley (that they were also taxing brewers made it a feature, not a bug for the Exchequer in London). The Irish responded by making whiskey with a mix of malted and unmalted barley, reducing their reliance on the taxed grain. Sometimes a minority amount of rye or oats would also be added, in much the same way that rye or wheat are used to tweak the flavor in bourbon. That became pot still whiskey.

Pot still whiskey only survived the world whiskey depression of the 1970s and 1980s because the living legend master distiller Barry Crockett spearheaded its retention. Jameson, for example, is a blended whiskey, but most blends are malt and grain whiskey, whereas Jameson is pot still and grain whiskey. Bushmills doesn’t make pot still whiskey, nor did anyone else in Ireland until the 21st Century.

Crockett’s successor at New Midleton was Brian Nation, until Nation left and became master distiller at O’Shaunghnessy. And now O’Shaunghnessy has a proper American-made pot still whiskey through its Keeper’s Heart brand. They are not the first distillery in the US to do this, although it should be pointed out that not everyone who has claimed the title actually merits it. Finger Lakes Distillery has had its McKenzie Pure Pot Still Whiskey for a decade and a half, but it doesn’t county because it is made with a pot and column set, not a set of pot stills, and that is part of the requirement. Talnua Distillery in Colorado were the first to do the business properly.

Keeper’s Heart American Pot Still Whiskey is made with an Irish style, triple set of pot stills and with a 50-50 split of malted and unmalted barley. The whiskey is aged in bourbon-style, charred new oak barrels, in keeping with the American rather than Irish way of doing things (Ireland being dependent on used barrels for maturation). The whiskey is bottled at 46% ABV.

The Whiskey
The color of the pour is pale amber in my Glencairn, with a nose that packs on cinnamon, clove and a handful of dry, spicy old wood shavings, coupled to some malty honey and a hint of dates. The flavor continues in a pot still vein, leading with a hefty presence of dry spiciness quite unlike what one gets from rye whiskey, accented with caramel, honey and a little citrus zest. The finish opens with dry wood spiciness, but as that fades away over the course of a lengthy spell, it leaves behind a note of non-descript, overripe tropical fruit.

The Price
The MSRP on this bottle is $50.