Teeling: Irish whiskey shakes off ‘stigma’

Irish whiskey has shaken off its “Irish coffee stigma” as it embarks upon a long-term premiumisation trend, according to Teeling Whiskey Company’s Stephen Teeling.

Stephen Teeling says Irish whiskey has embarked upon a long-term trend to premium

The firm, which opened the doors of its new €10 million Irish whiskey distillery in June last year, has witnessed Irish whiskey’s reputation evolve first-hand – a phenomenon that has fuelled impressive growth in existing markets and opened opportunities to new consumers.

Stephen Teeling, sales and marketing director of The Teeling Whiskey Company, explained: “When we started out there was such a fixed idea of what Irish whiskey was, and we were always trying to overcome that in the early years. A lot of the whisky guys used to say, ‘drinking Irish whiskey is like cheating, it’s not like drinking whisky, there’s nothing there’.

“Now, people are into Japanese whiskies, they’re trying Taiwanese whiskies, they’re open to judge liquid on its merits, not where its from. This is brilliant for us because it was just so frustrating that they wouldn’t even sample some of them.

“‘I don’t drink Irish, it’s only for Irish coffee’ was a stigma for years in the UK. Now, that’s totally changed, and if it’s presented in a certain way and the quality is there, people will give you a shot.”

Teeling believes the key to future of Irish whiskey is encouraging market segmentation by creating a point of difference through premium innovation – rather than pursuing entry-level blended whiskey expressions.

“That market is a race to the bottom,” he explained, “there’s already a big guy doing great things at a standard entry level. If you go in and try and replicate that, people will say, ‘I’ll take it if you give it to me for a euro cheaper’, and then all of a sudden you’re the knock-off.

“There’s a long term trend to premium, so the entry level or retail own-label liquid isn’t as successful as it used to be. With the economic downturn, people had less to spend, so they were more corncerned with what they were spending on.”

With this in mind, The Teeling Whiskey Company set out to become the “next step” for entry-level whisky drinkers.

“If you were to put three or four blended Irish whiskies side by side, it can be very difficult to tell the difference,” explained Teeling, “there are certain elements that you could probably pick out, but if you’re asking somebody to get excited about it, what would be the point in just doing another one of those?

“We said, ‘let’s come at this completely differently and look at presenting something that consumers don’t even know they’re waiting for’. We decided on three or four pillars that every one of our products would have – to be 46% abv, so we don’t have to do chill filtering; using interesting wood treatments; doing the process on a smaller scale; and learning from other categories and focussing on where you see the gaps.

“Our role is to be the next point – so we’re not far from what consumers like about Irish whiskey, but were giving them easy-to-understand points of difference, and also maybe challenging their perceptions.”

Last year, Teeling released 15YO single malt Irish whiskey The Revival in celebration of its new distillery.