TWO SPECIALLY selected casks of whiskey are sure to evoke memories when they travel along the Grand Canal from Kilbeggan to Dublin this August.
The shipment will be the first of its kind in over five decades. It is being transported to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of the commercial use of the canal.
Labelled Locke’s “Grand Crew” Irish Whiskey, the casks were selected at the Cooley distillery in Kilbeggan, Co Westmeath, specifically for the celebration.
On completion of the journey, the whiskey will be bottled and presented to surviving Grand Canal boatmen at a reception in Dublin. The event is being organised by the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland, the Heritage Boat Association, the 107B restoration barge project, Kilbeggan Harbour Amenity Group, Cooley distillery and the Irish Whiskey Society .
John Dolan of Inland Waterways Association explained the whiskey selection process for the historic voyage: “For our purposes, we wanted to bottle the contents of a good cask which we would then transport to Dublin by canal. Given that no two casks will ever be the exact same, a careful selection process was required.”
With this in mind, seven members of the Irish Whiskey Society gathered to select a suitable whiskey by tasting samples from several casks last May.
“While we originally intended to bottle a single cask, such is the interest that we intend to bottle a second one too. Each is a superb nine-year old malt whiskey, distilled in 2000 and matured at Kilbeggan since then in an ex-bourbon cask,” said Mr Dolan.
The group plans to travel down the dry Kilbeggan line to Ballycommon before loading the casks on a restored commercial boat to Dublin as part of this year’s Kilbeggan Challenge on Saturday, August 29th.
The journey along the dry line from Kilbeggan to Ballycommon will see the casks travel the canal bank on a vehicle flanked by boat crews. “We will have boat crews to protect them from brigands and pirates along the way,” Mr Dolan joked.
At Ballycommon, Co Offaly, the casks will be met by the Heritage Boat Association fleet before being loaded on to the former commercial 1930s canal boat 107B. This will then transport the casks to Dublin and on to a celebration with the former canal boatmen.
There are believed to be some 40 former canal workers living in Ireland today. A limited number of bottles of “Grand Crew” will be made available to the public after the former canal workers have been presented with their bottles.
“Grand Crew” is a single cask, single malt whiskey. It is being bottled at cask strength (almost 60 per cent) as this is the strength at which whiskey was typically shipped in cask by canal.
A way of life changed forever for many boatmen in December 1959 when CIÉ decided to end the commercial use of the canal due to increasing competition from road and rail networks.
Among the principal users of the Grand Canal were whiskey distilleries. Boats brought in malted and unmalted grain, coal to fire the stills and oak to make casks. The boats also transported the resulting whiskey to Limerick, Dublin, England and beyond.