Redbreast Single Pot Still Webinar with the Napa Valley Wine Academy

Irish Whiskey News

Jun 14

I was honored to co-present a webinar recently on Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey in conjunction with the Napa Valley Wine Academy (NVWA). As many will know Redbreast 12yo is my “gateway Irish Whiskey” so it was wonderful to get to talk about it in front of an audience of beverage professionals.

This was the first time that NVWA have hosted a spirits webinar and I got to work with two of their great team in the weeks leading up to the webinar. Liz Pirnat was the co-host and she lead the webinar and guided participants through WSET tasting as it relates to whiskey, and Irish Whiskey. In the background pushing all the buttons was Stephen Staples who did a fantastic job of putting structure to the event in our initial meetings.

We covered a lot of ground in the webinar - a refresher on whiskey production, the Irish Whiskey Act and the EU Geographic Indication (GI), tasting whiskey, barrel programs, the Sherry influence in Redbreast, and there was a little bit of Redbreast, and Irish Whiskey, history in there too. Amongst all of that, we managed to taste through three Redbreast expressions.

You can watch the webinar on YouTube below and you can follow along by tasting the 3-pack of Redbreast expressions - 12yo, Lustau, and 15yo - by purchasing a 3-pack from Gary at Blackwell Wines & Spirits at the link below.

Thank you to everyone who joined the webinar and contributed questions and comments. Thank you to Chris Oggenfuus and Catherine Bugue, who founded NVWA in 2011, and who I’ve known since I moved to the Napa Valley in 2008. Your support is appreciated.

And a thank you to Ger Garland at Irish Distillers Ltd. for sneaking me into the Redbreast Masterclass at the recent WhiskeyLive Dublin event, which helped me deepen my knowledge, appreciation, and love of Redbreast. Sláinte.

More info on Redbreast HERE.