Dunville's 12 Year Old Peated Palo Cortado Cask Single Malt Irish Whiskey
Dunville's · Echlinville Distillery (sourced malt, matured and bottled by Echlinville)
One of the most compelling Irish peated releases on the market — restrained, chiseled, and genuinely mineral, with the Palo Cortado adding architecture rather than sweetness. A cerebral whiskey for drinkers who think Islay has the monopoly on smoke.
Nose
Wisps of peat smoke drift over dry sherried nuttiness — toasted walnut, saline almond, and a whiff of struck flint. Beneath sits candied orange peel, hearth ash, and a faint medicinal tang like sea-worn driftwood.
Palate
Immediately mineral: wet slate and brine give way to a slow-building peat ember, framed by Palo Cortado's bone-dry hazelnut and bitter orange. Mid-palate turns waxy and oily with dark honey, clove, and a savory umami edge — soy-glazed nuts, dried fig skin, cocoa nib.
Finish
Long, ashy, and gently phenolic, with lingering walnut oil, sea salt, and a final glimmer of scorched citrus rind.
- Distillation
- Triple-distilled in copper pot stills
- Maturation
- Matured in ex-bourbon casks, then finished in hand-selected Palo Cortado sherry casks
- Single Pot Still
- No
- Chill-Filtered
- No
Cocktail Suggestion
The Basalt Coast — 2 oz Dunville's 12 Year Old Peated Palo Cortado; 0.25 oz Amontillado sherry; 0.25 oz honey syrup (2:1); 2 dashes orange bitters; 1 dash saline solution. Stir with ice 20 seconds, strain into a chilled coupe, express an orange peel over the surface and discard. A whisper of smoke, a spine of stone.
Food Pairing
Grilled mackerel with charred lemon and sea salt, or a slate board of aged Coolea cheese, Marcona almonds, and quince paste.
Revived in 2012 by Shane Braniff at Echlinville — Northern Ireland's first licensed distillery in over 125 years — the Dunville's name harks back to Belfast's grand pre-Prohibition whiskey house, and this peated Palo Cortado release marries that heritage to the estate's own growing malt-to-glass ambitions.
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