Ransom Wine Co & The Emerald 1865 Straight American Whiskey 750 ML

Thanks to colorful folklore passed down through the generations, we know that the whiskies of Ireland today little resemble their 19th century predecessors. Trouble was, there was none left of the traditional whiskey to taste in our quest to recreate the long lost gems of the Emerald Isle. Fortune gave us two good turns; a British excise agent who recorded an Irish mash bill in 1865, and our friend David Wondrich, who found said recipe poring over the microfiche annals of history and passed it along to us.

With this mash bill as our guide, we set out to create our own interpretation of whiskey as it would have been traditionally made in Ireland. To call our version modern might be a stretch — We grow a percentage of the barley organically on our farm, our grains are milled, mashed and fermented in small batches at our and farm in the emerald hills of Sheridan, Oregon, and we distill according to our senses in our handmade, direct-fired alembic pot still.

The Emerald matures in a mix of French and American oak for three years, and is hand-bottled, waxed, and labeled. The result is a highly aromatic spirit with the weight, richness, and complexity of its forbearers. In seeking to recreate a whiskey of another time and place, we feel we have created a spirit which speaks meaningfully to its two provenances; Ireland of yore, and the green hills of Oregon where it has taken a foothold after 150 years of migration. Like so many flavors from our heritage, it truly brings the old country back to life