Inspired, or perhaps spurred, by the success of craft distillers, established players across Scotch, Irish, and American whisk(e)y have made innovation and experimentation top priorities. Yet although they have ample means, these distilleries are, ironically, too big for such endeavours.
Take Ireland’s Midleton Distillery, famous for its pot stills of record-setting size; any new whiskey there would have to be trialled in batches measuring in the thousands of litres. And by 2015, the facility was actually at capacity, which distiller Katherine Condon says was hindering innovation. Condon heads up the Micro Distillery, which Midleton opened expressly as a hub for experimentation. She says it has allowed the company to “keep driving forward with innovation” without impacting the main distillery.
Likewise, the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience gives American whiskey mega-distiller Heaven Hill a petite outlet for testing ideas. “Doing one barrel a day, it’s a whole lot easier to experiment and have some innovations, as opposed to [master distiller Conor O’Driscoll] at Bernheim trying to do 1,500 barrels a day,” says Jodie Filiatreau, artisanal distiller at the Experience. Diageo, Beam Suntory, Brown-Forman, and Moët Hennessy
