Micil Earl's Island Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey
Micil · Micil Distillery
A genuinely distinctive pot still whiskey that captures the wild, windswept character of Galway. Micil's use of local peat and heritage grains produces something no other Irish distillery is currently making — modest in age but rich in place.
Nose
Wisps of Connemara turf smoke drift over warm malted barley, buttered brown bread, and orchard pear. Beneath sits a distinctly coastal note — sea spray, damp heather, and a whisper of clove.
Palate
Creamy pot still texture up front, with cereal sweetness, honeyed porridge, and green apple giving way to soft peat smoke, black pepper, and a herbal bitterness reminiscent of bog myrtle — a nod to the distillery's poitín heritage.
Finish
Medium-long and drying, with lingering earthy smoke, toasted oats, orange peel, and a mineral, almost salted note that recalls the Atlantic shoreline just beyond the distillery walls.
- Distillation
- Triple-distilled in copper pot stills at Micil Distillery, Oranmore, County Galway
- Maturation
- Matured in a combination of first-fill ex-bourbon barrels and ex-oloroso sherry casks
- Single Pot Still
- No
- Chill-Filtered
- Non-chill filtered, natural color
Cocktail Suggestion
The Salthill Sling — 60ml Micil Earl's Island, 20ml honey syrup (2:1 wildflower honey to water), 20ml fresh lemon juice, 2 dashes orange bitters. Shake with ice, strain into a chilled coupe, garnish with a lemon twist expressed over the surface.
Food Pairing
Smoked Burren mackerel pâté on toasted soda bread, or a wedge of aged Cashel Blue with oatcakes and heather honey.
Founded by Pádraic Ó Griallais, a sixth-generation poitín-maker whose family has been distilling in the Connemara Gaeltacht since 1848, Micil is the first licensed distillery in Galway city in over a century — and the only one drawing on hand-cut turf from the family's own bog.
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