I walked past a steel factory and a steel barrel factory and decided to stop in the liquor store where I once found Veterano brandy and once came up empty handed. Well no Veterano, though there was some brandy from Eastern Europe. I think it was from Moldova. I realized I'd never had brandy from Eastern Europe. The label described exotic spices and I was for a moment imagining a gypsy camp outside of Budapest and a lady in a maroon scarf hands me a bottle from inside her dark green caravan...
Where was I? Ah yes, well they had some strange stuff but nothing as strange as the bottle of whiskey at the very end of the shelf. It was partially obscured by another shelf. There it was: Murphy's Irish Whiskey. At first I thought it was another new Cooley whiskey. But then I saw that the label was old. It said Cork distillery. That's where they make Paddy's. Well that's where they advertise as making Paddy's. All the IDL brands are from the New Midleton distillery, including Jameson, which is in county Cork and built in 1975.
The back label is merely instructions on how to make Irish coffee.
Web sleuthing has brought me to this discussion on the Irish Whiskey Society's forum. One individual claims that they stopped shipping it to America in '88. What? Does this liquor store have bottles of whiskey from a defunct brand that have sat about since the Reagan administration? Should I buy more? Inquiring minds want to know. There is one review online, don't know how old it is.
Well I'll drink some this weekend and let the mystery unfold.
im in Houston, texas and have been searching for a while to purchase a couple bottles of Murphy's whiskey. would you be able to point me to somewhere i can look?
ReplyDeleteI have no idea. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteTo the question of "should you buy more". Unequivocally YES. This St. Patrick's Day, just a few days ago, at a friends party, someone's grandmother brought a crystal decanter bearing the stickered label "Murphy's Irish Whiskey". She said that it had been in the liquor cabinet for years. She estimated it was probably 50 years old.
ReplyDeleteUpon tasting it, it was easily and definitively the smoothest whiskey I've ever had. I couldn't get enough, and as soon as I got home I searched for it on the web. The most recent thing I could find about it was that "Murphy's" purchased and moved into a new distillery in 1977. Since then, their existence seems to have vanished. This is the only thread I could find. What a shame, as I would love to be able to get my hands on a number of bottles of this Irish Ambrosia.
BOUGHT A FEW BOTTLES OVER THE LAST SEVERAL MONTHS AT THE LIQUOR BARN IN WHEELING, IL ON DUNDEE ROAD. GOOD LUCK.
DeleteMr. S,
ReplyDeleteIt appears that IDL closed the Murphy's brand to America in the late 80s, and everywhere else in the early 90s. This is a defunct brand, sadly. However, I find the taste to be very similar to another IDL whiskey, Paddy's. Paddy is available in the States from time to time, and you might find the flavor to be a decent facsimile.
My brother has a bottle that was imported and bottles by Austin Nichols...just thought I would share that...
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody in the UK stock this as I'm marrying a Murphy and I'm a Campbell, so I wanted to give each family a bottle of the other families whiskey only I can't find it anywhere, could anyone help?
ReplyDelete