There’s no denying whiskey is the word these days. From new restaurant and bar openings like Gamlin Whiskey House, Small Batch and The Whiskey Ring to whiskey events happening almost every other day, this spirit is having a moment. For the casual whiskey drinker like myself, this has been my year of whiskey education, as I’ve been trying more brands and styles than I previously knew existed. On that note, when Kieran Folliard, North American ambassador for Kilbeggan Distilling Co., came to town this month to introduce his new Irish whiskey 2 Gingers, I picked his brain about the newest spirit to hit St. Louis’ always-growing whiskey market.
What makes an Irish whiskey distinct? There are no bad Irish whiskeys. The standards are too high. Well, not too high. You can never have too high. It has to be aged three years to be called Irish whiskey. And obviously, it has to be distilled, aged and blended in Ireland.
What brought you to the whiskey scene? I gave up the corporate world 20 years ago and started opening Irish pubs in Minneapolis, Minn. One of our values was curiosity. We would constantly ask the question, “How do we improve?” How do we do things differently? How do we go outside of the box? One of the things that came out of that was we created our own blend and brand of Irish whiskey.
Are you still the owner of the four pubs? No, you can’t do both in this country. If you have your own liquor brand, you can have it if it’s just for yourself, but if you want to sell it to a person across the street, since Prohibition, you can’t do that. I like to call it the separation of church and state. So I sold it to people who worked with me, some of them since the very beginning in 1993. Then I took the whiskey – it was doing so well within the pubs – and launched it in Minnesota in 2011: 2 Gingers.
To whom does the name refer? My mother and my aunt, Mary and Delia. It has to do with their attitude and fiery-ness, that take-no-prisoners attitude. I also like to joke that they can’t refute anything I have to say about them because they both passed away. They made it to 88 and 94, which is a pretty good run. But it was really that attitude.
How can a whiskey have an attitude?
My goal was to create a different blend with a different voice, a different attitude. I was always taken a aback by the notion that there was a certain snob element – oh, it has to be this, and you can only use it with this; you can only drink it with this – and I asked myself, really? That is not what I grew up with. I grew up in a small village in the west of Ireland, a rural farming community. I worked in Valradekins bar as a kid, 15 years old. Somebody asked me one time, “That must have been good experience for owning a bar,” and I said, “Well not in terms of bartending and running a pub, not really, because there were really only two ingredients in a drink and one of them was a glass.” You would literally get a glass and what you want in it. There was no ice, no straws, no napkins – God forbid, no fruit. It was a different way. It was really more about the camaraderie, the community, debate and so forth, and the drink was part of that, to lubricate the conversation, but it was that attitude. That was the attitude I wanted to bring to 2 Gingers. Not the snob element of a brand or product. We even put things on the bottle: “Drink with friends, or ice.” The product is serious, the process, the ingredients, the blending techniques – the quality of the product is absolutely there.
What is the difference between 2 Gingers and other Irish whiskeys? We distill it twice instead of three times like other Irish whiskeys. That reason is because we want to keep more of the flavor of the whiskey in it if it’s in a mixed drink. And we age it four years instead of three like other blended Irish whiskeys. The reason for that is we are looking for a smooth finish. That was one of the things I talked to Noel [2 Ginger’s master distiller] when we were developing the blend. You don’t want people to take a drink of whiskey and go hrrruah. The combination of things takes away the burn on the finish, making it very smooth.
As of this month, 2 Gingers is available in most area liquor and grocery stores.
Try out 2 Gingers’ trademarked cocktail Big Ginger with a bottle of 2 Gingers or your favorite whiskey: Add 2 parts 2 Gingers Whiskey into a collins glass filled with ice; top with ginger ale. Garnish with a lemon and lime wedge.
This article appears in January 2014.