*Sincere thanks to Quaker City Mercantile for the sample.

With the category of Irish whiskey booming, it’s no surprise that people are trying to jump in at all levels. There are a lot of non-distilling producers out there at the moment, making up new brands or reviving old ones. The interesting thing is that, relatively speaking, there’s a fairly narrow range of whiskey to work with if you’re looking to buy sourced product. While Ireland has seen its own craft distilling movement begin, outside of the two or three big ones, there’s just one or two other distilleries that can supply the needed quantity to a company looking to launch a sourced whiskey brand. What that means is that it’s becoming difficult to convince consumers that a new brand is something special and worth the relatively high tag that most of them carry.

Prizefight Irish Whiskey is the brainchild of a man named Flor Prendergast. In an effort to find a unique angle for his product, he teamed up with Steven Grasse, the founder of Quaker City Mercantile and Tamworth Distilling. Together they formulated a plan for an Irish Whiskey with an American twist. The matured whiskey has been sourced from Ireland’s West Cork Distillers, and then brought to the United States to be finished in ex-rye whiskey barrels from Tamworth Distilling. The prize fight aspect with the two old-timey boxers sizing each other up on the Quaker City Mercantile designed label was inspired by a pair of Irish-American bare-knuckle boxers, Yankee Sullivan and John Morrissey, that were quite famous and/or infamous in the mid-1800’s. As tempting as it is, I will refrain from delving too far into the fascinating lives of Sullivan and Morrissey. Suffice it to say they really captured the desperate brutality and incongruous, casual criminality of the USA at the time. Not sure I’d want to feature the two on my whiskey label, but that’s just me.

Prizefight does not carry an age statement, but I think it’s safe to assume it’s relatively young. Though the label and marketing material doesn’t specify, I think it’s also safe to assume that this is a blended Irish Whiskey. West Cork has been around for close to 14 years. According to their website, all spirit is triple distilled only in pot stills, and is only made from grain grown in Ireland.

The Nose:  Initially, slightly hottish on the nose. There’s dark, floral honey, bittersweet chocolate, sticky vanilla bean, milky caramel, and dried apples. Behind that, a faint hint of yeasty bread and malty beery mash, along  with laundered cotton on the line. There’s sanded, integrated oak with cinnamon, subtle nutmeg and clove, and a dusting of black pepper. There’s not much evidence of the rye barrels here, perhaps just a faint spiciness.

The Palate:  At first, there’s a subtle, almost simple, sweetness – brown sugar, plain honey, and vanilla syrup with a bit of orange and passionfruit. Continued notes of dark chocolate and a hint of dried grass. The rye is more apparent on the palate with sharper, greener spice. The oak is weightier here and much more tannic. Lots of cinnamon, some of it hot along with crushed cloves, black pepper, and young ginger,

The Finish:  Sweetly drying or dryingly sweet, I can’t decide. Vanilla caramel, and honey balance cinnamon, peppercorns, and grippy oak.

Thoughts:  I found myself enjoying this. There’s a bit of youth and imbalance to contend with, the heat of the nose, and the relative emptiness early on the palate, but it makes up for that with an interesting flavor profile that combines complex sugars, and subtle earthier notes. The rye influence is slight, though more noticeable on the palate, mostly casting a subtly spicy shadow over things. This is a decent whiskey and a welcome, intriguing departure from the usual blended Irish fare, however, it seems pricey at around $45-$50.

Prizefight Irish Whiskey, +/-2017

43% ABV

Score:  82

Sources:

• “Distillery – West Cork Distillers.” West Cork Distillers, http://www.westcorkdistillers.com/distillery/.
• “Prizefight Whiskey.” Prizefight Irish Whiskey, prizefightwhiskey.com/.
• “Quaker City Mercantile.” A hybrid of 19th century mercantilism and 21st century brand artistry, quakercitymercantile.com/.