The Ennis Whiskey Club have organised a series of Irish Brand tastings around Ennis again for 2025. Our September event was Powers Whiskey, presented by head distiller, Eric Ryan.

Eric Ryan is a legend of the Irish Whiskey industry. His knowledge of Powers Irish Whiskey is second to none. He would give anyone a good run for their money on general Irish whiskey history. And by the way, he is also the head distiller for the Powers Whiskey range in Midleton distillery and now leans heavily into maturation and innovation for the brand.

I suppose it would have been easy to show up with the Powers core range products, and it would be a great night. But wow, Eric blew us away with a masterclass tasting of core range components. All cask pulls from the maturation warehouses in Midleton. One of the attendees simply put it "best whiskey tasting yet!".

Eric went into great detail of the TradPot, ModPot and LightPot styles of whiskey distilled at Midleton and the cask programme for the Powers whiskey. These were the samples he brought us to tell the Powers story - a 7yo Rye from Virgin American Oak (50% abv to break us in gently!); a 7yo Three Swallows aged on in a B4 cask (59% abv); a John's Lane product aged on to 14yo (56.8% abv); a blend Eric put together of 50:50, 2 casks, ~28yo; a 16yo all oloroso sherry, a LightPot component of John's Lane; a 26yo John's Lane LightPot from a Madeira drum (~56% abv). A night to remember! Thanks Eric!