Blackwater Velvet Cap Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey
Blackwater · Blackwater Distillery
A defiantly historical pot still that reclaims Ireland's lost mash bill tradition — briny, oily, and impossibly characterful. This is transformation as recovery: a distillery pulling forgotten grains back into the glass.
Nose
Fresh orchard fruit — green apple and pear skin — leads into buttered malt loaf, a whisper of aniseed, and warm cereal porridge with a drizzle of honey.
Palate
Oily and expansive on arrival, delivering baked apple, toasted oats, black pepper, and a rye-like herbal snap. Vanilla cream and clove spice build in the mid-palate, with a distinct grassy, hay-loft quality that speaks to the unusual grain bill.
Finish
Medium-long and peppery, with lingering warm porridge, dried orange peel, and a dry, cereal-driven farewell.
- Mash Bill
- 45% malted barley, 35% unmalted barley, 12% oats, 8% rye — a reconstructed 19th-century Irish pot still recipe
- Distillation
- Triple-distilled in copper pot stills at Blackwater Distillery, Ballyduff
- Maturation
- Matured in a combination of first-fill bourbon barrels and virgin American oak casks in Blackwater's County Waterford warehouses
- Single Pot Still
- No
- Chill-Filtered
- Non chill-filtered, natural color
Cocktail Suggestion
The Ballyduff Revival — 2 oz Blackwater Velvet Cap, 0.75 oz oloroso sherry, 0.25 oz honey syrup, 2 dashes orange bitters. Stir over ice, strain into a chilled coupe, express an orange peel over the surface and drop it in.
Food Pairing
Aged Coolea cheese with oatcakes and a spoonful of quince paste, or a slow-braised pork belly with apple compote.
Founded in 2014 by Peter Mulryan and John Reidy on the banks of the Munster Blackwater, the distillery painstakingly researched 19th-century excise records to reconstruct authentic pre-Prohibition Irish pot still mash bills — grain formulas long abandoned by the mainstream industry.
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