Max "Bunny" Sparber

IT'S TEMPTING TO DISMISS this whiskey on it's name alone, because it's a gag, and I would think that any bartender would start to lose their mind were this to become popular and every half-witted want-to-be wit starts bellying up to a bar and demanding his feckin' whiskey. But, then, Edward Albee named one of his scripts The Play About the Baby just because he thought it would be a funny answer when people asked each other what play they were going to see, and that was nominated for a Pulitzer, so it's good not to be in too much of a rush to judgment just because of a prankish name.

It's worth checking out Feckin' just for its pedigree, as it comes from the Cooley Distillery in County Louth, and they are responsible for some very good whiskeys, including Michael Collins, Tyrconnell and Connemara, the later of which is one of the rare Irish whiskeys that is made with a strong peaty flavor. Their brands tend to be a little spendy, and I suspect Feckin' was created, in part, to offer a less-expensive alternative. I suspect there is one additional reason, implied by their name: They're trying to market their whiskey to a younger and, shall we say, more party-minded buyer. In fact, their are two Feckins, one of them spices, and they actually identify the whiskey as being sort of the Irish equivalent of Captain Morgan's, which has gone to great lengths to market themselves as a party rum. I have a bottle of the Feckin' Spiced as well, but will write about it separately.

Despite this, the Cooley Distillery takes great pains to make the case that Feckin' is a quality whiskey -- they make a lot of noise about it on their Web page, explaining that this blended whiskey is distilled in traditional copper pot stills and matured for up to seven years in bourbon casks; additionally, they claim the whiskey was created by an "expert panel of blenders." They repeatedly describe the whiskey as "smooth," this being the connoisseur's word for "It went down my throat without causing me to cough up blood." And it is that: Feckin' has a strong flavor, but very little of the alcohol burn that comes from unmellow whiskeys. The bourbon flavor comes through, as does a slight smokiness which is most noticeable in the drinks finish, which is long and pleasant. It doesn't have the spiciness of Jameson or the chocolate qualities of Bushmills, and there are some slightly peaty notes to it that I would ordinarily associate with scotch. No mention of peat is made in any of Feckin's literature, so I assume this either comes from its proximity to the Connemara brand or some lie my taste buds have decided to tell me. The drink actually has more flavor than similar drinks that are marketed to young drinkers, who often don't like and sometimes actively fear the taste of alcohol, but perhaps that is why there is a spiced option.

It's not a terrifically complicated drink, and, for my tastes, gets a little dull when drunk straight; it's very possible this is intended to be a mixing whiskey rather than a sipping whiskey, and so I combined a shot of it with ginger ale and a dash of bitters, which is a fairly simply mixed drink but one I find is especially good with Irish whiskeys. Feckin' is quite good this way -- it has a pronounced enough flavor to not get lost in the cocktail, but, because it is blended, is not so idiosyncratic as to overpower the drink.

I don't know that this is a whiskey I would buy regularly -- it's just not especially to my tastes. But, then, I've only drunk a bit of it, and sometimes a whiskey will grow on you. We'll see how I feel when I have lived with it for a week and emptied the bottle. I'll be curious how this does in bars -- Jameson has so completely saturated Minnesota bars, I wonder how well it might compete. It seems to have made it into a lot of bars as a whiskey option, but, then, I tend to go to Irish bars, who often have a decent selection of Irish whiskeys. I'm a little afraid that it's gimmicky name and lowbrow packaging might work against it here, which would be a pity, as it's a better drink than one created merely as a marketing stunt.

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