S2 E21 - From Past to Present: McConnell's Irish whisky Evolution with Sarah Kennedy

* this transcript is auto-generated, please excuse any typos.

00:00:11
Hi, Sarah. How are you? I'm good. So you've brought me to this beautiful, wonderful pub. Let me hear a little bit about this pub before we get started on the panels.

00:00:18
Okay, so we're upstairs in the Duke of York. There's been many whiskey tastings up here also, you know, events. I had my 30th birthday party up here last year, so I'm giving away my age there. But, yeah, we've moved up here because on a Saturday at this time, it is the afternoon, but it is very busy downstairs. And that is because the Duke of York bar is just very central to Belfast.

00:00:41
Willie Jack started this pub many years ago, and it's just been going from strength to strength. It's a place for weddings, tourists. We were over in there at the friend at hand, which is just a stone throw away from here. And as well, this pub has deep whiskey roots. You just have to look around at some of the old whiskey mares just to see that all of the Belfast whiskey that used to be around back in the day, it's no longer here, unfortunately.

00:01:07
Right. Let's talk about back in the day. Okay, so McConnell's, which we brought two bottles here, used to be a big whiskey producer here in Belfast before the Prohibition. Thanks, America. It's all your fault.

00:01:21
Tell me a little bit about the family history and how they started McConnell's and then why it was resurrected. Okay, so the McConnells family were from Cumber, and they started the Whiskey brand in 1776, which is a very significant year in America. Of course, we have lots to do. With your timing belt here. Yeah, we were starting whiskey brands, and you guys were starting the country, which is an incredible story.

00:01:44
I think it's a brilliant year. It also means that in 2026, we'll be celebrating our 250th anniversary. That's great. Which will be brilliant. So the McConnells brand started in 1776, but back then, they didn't have a distillery.

00:01:59
They were spirit grocers, spirit dealers, and the family stayed in the business for many years. We can actually trace back to Hugh McConnell, who was John and James McConnell's father. HE passed away whenever John and James were only two years old. Oh, wow. So, Eleanor, their mother, she held that business for around 20 years before her two sons were old enough to take over the business.

00:02:23
But it just shows how females played a large part in the history of Irish whiskey. She was actually noted as a rectifying distiller back then, which is, I think, is an incredible story. We call her Eleanor McConnell, Mother McConnell. Obviously, as a female, I find this incredible and women in whiskey is growing, and I just find it fascinating. But it shows how Belfast was really ahead of the time and how females played a large part in industry at the time.

00:02:50
So, fast forward, then, to when the distillery opened, which was in the 18 hundreds. So John and James opened their distillery in Ravenhill Road in Belfast. It was called the Chromac distillery, but it was actually J. J. McConnell's.

00:03:07
They had a beer, and they also had a whiskey. So they had a brewery where they made stout, and they would have used porter grains for their stout. I'd love to do a bit more history on it, and I definitely will delve into it a bit further. But they also had the whiskey distilling, which they were huge in the export market. So they shipped a lot of their whiskey to America, and they shipped a lot of their whiskey into the European market as well.

00:03:32
They were huge players, very much industrial players at the time. They had their distillery. They also had five bonded warehouses in around Belfast. And one of their bonded warehouses was just around 100 yards from this building, and it was in Dunbar Street. Okay, so Dunbar Street, Nye has a bar in there, and it also has a market called Common Market, that is drinks, food.

00:03:56
It's a very vibrant part of the city. But before then, there was the JNJ McConnell's bonded warehouse, which, unfortunately, suffered a fire in 1909, which was right in the middle of the city. Don't know exactly what started the fire, but it could have been as simple as a spark with all of the flammable liquid. And as I said, flammable liquid, it went up really quickly and destroyed half a million gallons of Irish whiskey. That's so sad.

00:04:23
Which is a lot of whiskey. There's tales of how the whiskey would have flown through the streets of Belfast, which is, you can see in the newspaper clippings, which I'll share with you as well. And also, it destroyed half a million gallons of Irish whiskey. Aging stock. That's a lot of money.

00:04:39
Yeah. And back then, it was almost a quarter of a million pounds. Wow. In the early 19 hundreds, which was huge amounts. There are stories about how even some of the insurance companies at the time were put out of business because they had to pay out these claims.

00:04:55
But as well, the company showed lots of resilience, and they got back up on their feet again, and they continued to trade right up until the mid 1930s, which we know the reason in for the downfall again. Well, not just to marry the export market was incredibly important, and it was a lot to do with that. But there was also issues in the Commonwealth, and there was civil wars. There was also the fact that the Kofi still and the continuous still, and if you look at some of the old McConnell's marketing, they marketed very heavily that they used pot stills only, which is back then and even now, a less efficient way of making Irish whiskey. But the continuous still in Scotland was really adopted, and it meant that Scotland could start making more, especially in their grain whiskey component.

00:05:44
And it just meant that it affected the Irish whiskey market as a whole, which meant then it had a knock on effect on many of the distilleries in Ireland. And we all know the story that there was a complete demise of Irish whiskey and we ended up with only two distilleries on the island of Ireland. But, yeah, I mean, there's a massive Irish whiskey renaissance. And we've been sure you've been hearing that everywhere you go in Ireland. What I'm doing here is showing the progression and how everybody's coming back and back online.

00:06:11
So whose idea was it to bring McConnell's back, and when did the project start, and how soon do you think the distillery would be ready to have people come visit? Well, as we said, we visited the distillery. I showed you the site. It's a beautiful site in the crumbling road. Geo.

00:06:25
But with any project in a listed building, it can take a lot of time. And the project originally started back in 2012, as far as that, so yet there was a group of investors then that took over the project. And we have a number of government bodies who are involved in the project, like Invest, Northern Ireland, some of the local banks. And we are bringing this distillery back now. So that's been from 2016.

00:06:50
So you can imagine. Now we're in 2022, and we aim to open our doors in 2023. So it's a long game project, and people have put their heart and soul into making sure that this distillery is built and that the McConnells brand is brought back. And the McConnells brand. Whenever we were thinking about bringing a single malt distillery to Belfast, we researched into what brands were out there.

00:07:14
We researched into maybe bringing out new brands. But the reality is the J. J. McConnell's Irish whiskey brand has such a wealth of history, such a footprint in Belfast City, and we thought we would revive the brand and bring it back to the people of Belfast. That's great.

00:07:30
I'm from Belfast myself, and as soon as I heard that story that they were bringing something that had lost its fire and lost its heritage, and they were reigniting that and bringing a physical distillery back to Belfast for the J and J. McConnell's home. I thought it was fantastic and really compelling story. So how long have you been working. For J and J?

00:07:51
So I started in early 2020. So the brand was launched, relaunched in March 2020, which was probably the worst time for anyone to relaunch a whiskey brand because it meant that all of the trade shows, all of the travel, all of that sort of marketing that you would usually do with a product. The export market is massive in the Irish whiskey world, and it's a huge percentage of our sales go to the export market. And so that meant that we had to scale back and think, how do we do this? We went more online, we started doing more podcasts, and they thought, God, we need a brand ambassador to do this.

00:08:30
We need someone who can start speaking about the brand and start really doing a bit of research and talking about it on these podcasts. So then I was hired. I don't know why they picked chose me, but I'm glad they did. And I've been working with the brand now for two and a half years. So about two months ago now, I was made brand manager and we have brought in a new brand ambassador and the company is continuing to grow.

00:08:55
So it started off small and now we have six employees. By this time next year, we'll have 50 employees. Wow. So it's just going to grow from strength to strength. Now, tell me, you guys already have some liquid laid down and it's aging.

00:09:10
Is it almost mature? So you can almost start getting it out or you have some out? How does that work? So we have a product. This is our first release.

00:09:18
It came out in March 2020. As I said, it was actually launched slightly before in the US market in 2019. And then we launched it here in March 2020. And this is the first product that we brought out. We do source our liquid.

00:09:33
Like many of the Irish whiskey distilleries, we are growing, but we're still young. And obviously, to have an Irish whiskey, it needs to be at least three years old. So we wanted to make sure we started to talk about our brand before we actually built the distillery, because then you can start to get the brand message out there and people start to become aware of your brand before you build the distillery. And by source. Are you buying new make or are you buying already aged?

00:09:59
So originally we bought aged whiskey. We bought old Irish whiskey stock as well. But we have started laying down our own new make whiskey for the past number of years. Okay. And so it means that we have more control over the flavor profile over the mash bill of the whiskey.

00:10:14
And that will start to come through. We have our own blend, but it's a unique blend. It's a unique taste, and the taste is very distinctive. And we will taste it. And I'll talk you through the taste and notes very shortly.

00:10:26
So tell me, you're going to have a visitor center. What all is going to be included in that? So when you enter, you'll enter into the reception area, and you'll be welcomed into the J. J. McConnell's experience.

00:10:36
Now, you'll have a choice of what type of experience that you want to have. You can have a fairly immersive experience, or you can just come to visit the actual stills and get talked through the process of the single malt. But you can do everything when you go in there. So you'll be taken around the Millenn room, you'll be taken around the stills. You'll be talking about the process in which we distill our single malt.

00:11:01
And then after that, you'll be able to go and blend your own whiskey, which is incredible because the blended Irish whiskey market is huge. And it's just really fun way of learning firsthand what goes into the blending process. And it shows you how much a blend can change the flavor profile of a whiskey. Then you can move on to the cocktail experience, where since I joined the Irish whiskey market, I find that Irish whiskey cocktails are an incredible way to, number one, introduce people into Irish whiskey who you're really reluctant to try. And also another way of really enjoying Irish whiskey, because neat whiskey is brilliant.

00:11:37
I love it. I sip wheat neat whiskey all the time. And then cocktails just kind of make it a little bit more sociable. And the flavors that you can work with in whiskey, it's very versatile. Just make it that little bit different with an Irish whiskey cocktail.

00:11:52
So we will have a cocktail experience as well. Great. What's your favorite Irish whiskey cocktail? Well, everyone, different strokes for different folks, but I definitely love an old fashioned because I like a spirit led cocktail. I actually really like an Irish old fashioned because I do love the bourbon market and love a bourbon and time and place for bourbon.

00:12:13
But with Irish whiskey, there's just that lighter note that comes through. It doesn't seem as heavy as. Well, you can add lots of citrus in there, which comes through with the citrus notes that come in whiskey, and then the honey notes that are in there. And the vanilla notes just work really well with the sugar that comes through. And I like a dash of orange bitters in my old fashioned.

00:12:34
All right, so I think it's time we start tasting these. Let me give you my glass here. My McConnell's glass. Beautiful Irish glass. Yeah, that's the Tua glass.

00:12:42
It's the Irish whiskey glass. It's the answer to the Glen. Karen. I think it's prettier. It is really pretty.

00:12:49
Sorry, Glenn. Karen. It's made by a girl called Rosie, and she's just fabulous female in the Irish whiskey industry. Thank you. But as important as.

00:12:58
Actually, I just want to talk to you about the actual bottle, because we get asked a lot of questions about it. It's obviously a bespoke bottle. Oh, it's gorgeous. And it's quite heavy. It's got a lot of glass in there.

00:13:09
And the reason for it, it's very much like a decanter. The label itself. We've seen the old bottle of McConnell's in the Whiskey Museum that we were in, so we kept a lot of the brand. The logo is very much similar, and we've also kept whiskey without the E. Nice.

00:13:26
So Irish whiskey, of course, is spelt with an E. We all know that. When I started with McConnell's, I was like, why is there no E? But the thing is that the E was introduced into Irish whiskey, and because McConnell's is so old, it's actually one of the oldest Irish whiskey brands on the island. We didn't actually ever adopt the E throughout history, and so we just decided to stay with history and not change it in any way, because any of the mirrors, any of the old bottles, all of the history, all of the ads and the newspaper clippings, no E.

00:14:01
So we just didn't want to change history. So we've kept a lot of this the same. But if you see down here where it says the revival, the HarpeR Verne. And what about the E? Down the bottom, it says, what about the E?

00:14:13
It says, what about the E? To tell the story, because people ask all the time. It used to be doctors that recommended McConnell's. Right. So you're talking medical doctor, actually recommending a whiskey.

00:14:25
It's such an old Irish tradition. And you hear about how doctors would have recommended whiskey to sell all your ailments, common cold and the common sore throat. And sore throat. Yeah, a little bit of whiskey. But obviously, we couldn't do that in modern day.

00:14:43
And we also shaped our bottle like a pill capsule. Oh, nice. As a bit of a nomad. And then the bottom of the bottle as well is if you go into any of the old Irish pubs, into the little snugs or boobs. They had opiate glass for privacy.

00:14:58
So this is what the opiate glass looks like. And you'll probably notice this more when I've told you. And this is the bottom of the bottle. A lot of people think it looks like a whiskey glass. And then the badge as well, which is.

00:15:12
The badge is my favorite. It's fab. I love that part of the bottle as well. But this is a nod to the docks, in the Belfast docks. And I didn't really mention it, but if you want to see on the bottle, there's the Harper Verne behind the strings of harp, which is a really intricate cork that we have.

00:15:29
It's full, natural cork that we use. And for the big hunter style. And at the top, there's this little sort of knobbly bit that is like a hand blown bottle of whiskey that would have been back in history. All right, let's taste this. Yeah.

00:15:44
Well. Cilantro. Cilantro. Let's do a nose. So on the nose it again, it is a blended Irish whiskey.

00:15:54
And it's five years old. And it's aged for those five years in first fill bourbon casks. I was going to say, I smell bourbon on here. So you do get the bourbon nose as well. It's a little vanilla, little flower, little.

00:16:05
Yeah. I'm going to let you say it and then I'll. No, you say it. I'm no good at. I'm so bad at that part.

00:16:12
So you do get a lot of. Until they're strawberry. We have this running joke because the other day there was something, I'm like, am I getting strawberry? And they all looked at me like I was crazy. And he said, banana.

00:16:22
I said, oh, maybe it's strawberry. Banana. Strawberry as well. You do get that a lot because the strain of yeast that's used in Irish whiskey, you get a lot of fruit. Yeah.

00:16:31
So I get. Do you know, like honeydew melon? Yes. Freshly caught honeydew melon. A little cantaloupe, too.

00:16:39
Yeah. Also, there is a bit of a floral note on there, which we do prepare. I'm going in.

00:16:51
Oh, my. That's a lovely blend. It is. So it's a little bit longer than it is our standard blend. It's our core product.

00:17:01
Five years old instead of the three years old we put the age statement on the bottle. It's also 42% ABV, or 84 proof. So slightly higher ABV than some of the blended whiskeys in the category. That would be 40% or 80 proof. And it just has some of those characteristics come through a little bit more.

00:17:25
So the spiciness really comes through in the end. It has a grassy note on the palate with a spicy kick at the end. Does this have any single pot in it? It doesn't. It's a full blend of Irish grain and Irish malt.

00:17:38
Okay, it's the grain, then, because the grassy note is probably coming through. Yeah. The green. So it's 40% malted barley and 60% Graham whiskey. That's delicious.

00:17:49
Yeah. I respect the blends, and I think if you can make a good blend, then you're amazing, because you have to not only get the flavor profile of your one single malt, but then everything else that you're getting, and you have to perfectly be able to blend it into one flavor. So I think it's really hard. So if you can do a really good blend.

00:18:10
Yes, it's fantastic. And this is really good. I'm very impressed because blended whiskey, I think, sometimes gets a bit of a bad rep, because I think there's an art that comes to a blend. You need to make sure that the two components really match each other. Yeah.

00:18:22
Also, if you're just going, oh, let's just sell some stuff and pouring it together. And those are the types, the ones that I could afford. Those were what they were. But now, as I've gotten into the more mature blends, people are doing a really good job, and you guys did fine job with it. Can we try this one?

00:18:36
I'm really interested in your opinion on this one. Yes. Because this is a bit of an experiment for us in that we didn't really change very much other than the cask finishing. So pour some of this one. So this one's also a blend.

00:18:51
This is also a blend. Oh, I do smell the sherry notes on that. It's very heavy sherry. So, as I said, it's a bit of an experiment in that we've kept. The blend is the same.

00:19:03
It's five years old as well. It's just got an extra six months in an Oloraso Sherry cask. And they're old Olarasso Sherry butts that we source from Portugal. They're Spanish oloraso sherry butts. They're around 26 year old sherry butts.

00:19:17
So there's lots of heavy notes in there. It's got a really good color, too. You can see the difference in the color. Yeah. It is a bit more rustic, too.

00:19:23
It's non chill filtered. The first product is chill filtered. Second product isn't chill filtered. And the second would explain why it's a little more oily on the glass. Yeah.

00:19:31
It's also got a little bit of a huge hit. Yeah. Okay, let's do it. Let's do it.

00:19:41
Amaze balls. Yeah. So the flavor changes completely. Oh, yeah. So it's basically the same juice, same component.

00:19:48
Yeah. That's crazy different. And it kind of shows you. That's what I mean by innovation and story. The late finish.

00:19:56
There's a chocolate and a bit of a leathery note. There's a leathery sort of raisin note, too, as well. Comes raisin. That's it. Yeah.

00:20:07
And it's 46% ABV, so it's higher ABV, just slightly, because we wanted the product to be non chill filtered. But it's a fab whiskey, and it does show you the difference that a cask can do to a blended. How many months did you say it was finished? Six. Six.

00:20:24
Wow. Just only six? And it's that big a difference. It's first fill, though, so you really get those notes come through really punchy. And it's just worth noting as well, because I know you've traveled the whole way from LA, that McConnell's is available in all 50 states.

00:20:37
That is a feat of itself, because we have this stupid three tier system, which is still left over from Prohibition. And I know Americans that don't have their products in all 50 states. Yeah, well, that's what I mean. I think it's brilliant because any, anyone who kind of follows me on Instagram or anyone who asks me where to get it, and they're in America, it's very easy for me. You go on the website, put your zip code in, and it tells you exactly where to buy it.

00:21:00
It's a bit harder in some of the markets across Europe because we don't have that data to be able to tell someone exactly where to get it, but we can in the US. Let's talk about the diversity of what you can do with these whiskeys, because as blends, I mean, you can do a lot with these. So tell me, what kind of things do you recommend for these? Well, I think I talked to you about how Irish whiskey makes incredible cocktail because it's really versatile, it's got loads of flavors on it, but it also is great for helping new demographics. The Irish whiskey industry is changing.

00:21:31
The consumer is changing, for sure. And a lot of people do say, even still, when I say, do you drink Irish whiskey? And they say, no, but my father did or my grandfather did. That is changing. There's more females coming into the Irish whiskey world, there's more female consumers coming into the Irish whiskey world, younger demographic as well.

00:21:52
And that is a lot to do with the mixology, world changing and how they introduce people into Irish whiskey. So you've got really influential style bars across the world, like the dead rabbit, or bars here, like the Merchant Hotel, or you've got other bars that don't want any. There's other bars out there, guys. But I'm just saying bars that really focus on the Irish whiskey cocktail, and that is helping people be introduced to Irish whiskey. And people who said maybe they didn't like the flavors of whiskey are now trying it in a cocktail, which is meaning it's making it more available and more widely available and more attractive to the younger demographic and some females as well.

00:22:31
And then from there, then you move into your highballs, your whiskey gingers, and then some people then go to, let me try that spirit neat, because Irish whiskey, I think you should always try it neat first, right? And then figure out, do I like that? What do I not like about that? Do I have a little bit of water? Would I prefer some ice, or would I like it in a long drink or a cocktail?

00:22:52
So it's always great to try the whiskey neat first and see whether you like. I agree, wholeheartedly agree that, but it. Definitely helps with the change in demographics in Irish whiskey. So as I've been going through the country, countries, because it's technically two countries here in Ireland, I've seen a lot of togetherness and a lot of these new distilleries are trying to hire locally. Is that something you guys are trying to do?

00:23:18
Yeah, well, it's very much so. What we're trying to do, our CEO, John Kelly, is from North Belfast, which is where our distillery is going into. He actually went to school just over the prison wall in St. Malik's College. Wow.

00:23:33
And he's worked in the industry for around 25 years, probably more than that, but I don't know the exact number. But he's been in the industry for many years, and it's always sort of been a dream of his to work in his home city and also to still work in the industry. So when he heard that the opportunity to run a company that was a Belfast whiskey that was so close to his home, he really jumped at it. So you can imagine he really focuses on trying to get the community involved in the whiskey. And with the crumb and row jail being in North Belfast, it's an area of Belfast that needs a lot of regeneration.

00:24:09
And a lot of TLC, really. So what we are trying to do is to make sure we give the opportunities to people in Belfast. I'm from around 2 miles away from the distillery myself. Then our new brand, Ambassador Croher, is from less than 2 miles, probably 800 meters away from the distillery. And then we have more of our staff, like Joanne, she works in supply, and she's from really close to the distillery.

00:24:35
And then we have Patrick, who's also. He's from Fermana, it's not too far away. And Desi, our commercial know, he's from the dairy direction, so it's very much local, and we want to just support people locally. And whenever we were opening our distillery, a lot of the distilleries would be in Dublin, Cork, Galway. But Belfast was once the biggest producer of Irish whiskey in the world.

00:25:00
So we really need to start bringing that heritage back to the city, and that's what our aim is. What's your personal whiskey journey like? What got you into the whiskey industry? How did you decide that whiskey was where it was at? And this is what you want to do, and this is what you were passionate about talking about, of course.

00:25:15
So obviously grew up in Belfast City. I went to school here, I went to university very close to here. Never really left. And I worked in hospitality for around five years as a student. And then also after I graduated, before I entered the world of work and left hospitality and wasn't doing part time jobs anymore.

00:25:37
And my love for Irish whiskey started to grow at an earlier age because my father did drink Irish whiskey. He also drank Scotch whiskey because there wasn't as much Irish available at the time. But he loved his whiskey. He loved it with two ice cubes. And over time, I tried it sometimes.

00:25:56
The first time I tried it, I thought, oh, my God, that tastes like fire. Like, that is too much for me, of course, because my palate was so young at the stage. But I tried it with my father, and then I would have taken a lot of trips up the anthromcosis, my dad, and tried it more then in a cold setting with a hot whiskey. And then I was like, oh, this is really nice. And then after a long shift, having a whiskey with a drop of ice was brilliant.

00:26:20
But even then, back in 2011, there wasn't very many options for Irish whiskey behind the bar. But I did try most of the Irish whiskeys behind the bar. So after that, I did go into the world of finance for a few years, which I hated. And no, if any of my previous employers are listening to that, I didn't hate you. I just hated my job.

00:26:45
And so then I got the opportunity to enter back into the world of spirits and hospitality again. And that's whenever I was like, God, I'm 27. If I don't do it now, I will never do it. So when I got the opportunity, I took it, and I haven't looked back. I absolutely love my job, and I love talking about Irish spirits.

00:27:03
That's great. So what's your favorite style of whiskey, if you had to choose one? Like Irish, American, Scottish, Japanese? Oh, God, definitely Irish. Nothing against any of the other categories.

00:27:20
I definitely have tried a lot of Scotch over the years and fab, but I just think the Irish whiskey category is so innovative at the minute, and I feel like there's so much going on and there's so many different products out there, and there's all these different casks that are being used, different woods that are being used, which is very unique to Irish whiskey. And the pot still category is also unique to Irish whiskey. There's just so much going on that I just find it fascinating. And it's not all down to flavor profile, it's down to emotion and attachment and storytelling and heritage. So I just find the Irish whiskey category fascinating.

00:27:58
Speaking of pot still, are you guys going to have any pot still varieties coming out? Well, at the minute, it is a single malt Irish whiskey distillery. We haven't even opened our doors yet, so it's not currently in the plan to have the pot still style. But when you have pot stills there, it's always a possibility to make a pot still styled whiskey. But for the minute, it will be single malt coming off our stills for the foreseeable.

00:28:21
Okay. But you never know. Great. Ask me in a year. All right.

00:28:25
Well, Sarah, thank you so much for being on the show today. It was wonderful getting to know all about the stuff here in Belfast and taking us to the museum and this bar and everywhere that we've been. It's been fantastic. And when you come to LA, let me know. We'll have a right party for you.

00:28:41
Yeah. See some friendly faces. All right, thank you so much. Thank you very much too. Fela Shakhma.