Micro-distillery has a taste of Tipperary in its bottles

Jennifer Nickerson, Stuart Nickerson and Liam Ahearn founded the Tipperary Boutique Distillery in 2014. Jennifer and Liam first met when working in an Irish bar while studying at Edinburgh University. Liam’s family has a farm at Ballindoney, Co Tipperary. Her father has been master distiller and consultant at a host of well-known Scottish distilleries, as well as advising here in Ireland.

“We could have our own whiskey out next year but we’ll probably wait a few years,” says Jennifer . They brought their own barley to distil elsewhere and matured it in Ballindoney, so they have sufficient stocks. “We’re doing about four barrels per week; we are tiny compared to most Irish distillers. Two thousand bottles is our longest run. It’s what we are known for. We use home-grown barley and our own water; it’s a taste of Tipp itself.”

Each whiskey has a QR code, with concise details of the specific barley field, the weather, the distillation and maturation of each barrel. “We hope people will see the differences in the flavours and the impact that soil and weather has on our whiskey.”

Tipperary recently released Fairy Tree Gin, made using homegrown barley and hawthorn leaves from their hedgerows. Jennifer picked more than 2kg of hawthorn leaves, which were then frozen and dried. “We wanted something different, bringing things back to the farm. We did some trials with malted barley, barley, oats and wheat, but it needed something more. The hawthorns rounded out the flavours and brought a lovely sweetness.” The gin (€35), and whiskies are available from tipperarydistillery.ie and Celtic Whiskey.