Ireland: Skellig Six 18 Whiskey Distillery

A visit to Ireland can’t be without visiting an Irish whiskey distillery, and Skellig Distillery was a perfect choice. The Skellig Six 18 distillery’s name is a tribute to the 618 grueling steps monks carved into the rockface of the nearby Skellig Michael (see previous posts).The distillery sits in a building where it was a bustling textile plant, then the boat-dry dock that were operating as tourists ferry taking people to Skellig Michael every summer. The distillery is famous for producing single pot still whiskey (and also small-batch Irish gin). The salty, damp sea breeze directly blows through the wooden barrels, naturally accelerating and shaping the whiskey’s flavor profile. The water comes directly from an on-site well fed by the Kerry mountains. Custom copper stills are used for distillation. The casks are aged right on the edge of the Atlantic coast. Their whiskey won a global Double Gold award at the 2022 International Spirits Challenge. We tried three different whiskey varieties and two gins, all awesome!