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Skellig Six18 – the young Irish distillery harnessing centuries of tradition on the edge of Europe

Ireland’s new wave of whiskey makers is coming of age. Scattered across Ireland, one of the most remote is Skellig Six18, a producer carving a future on the wild west coast

When 6th-century monks carved 618 stone steps by hand into an isolated hillside of an Atlantic island, they couldn’t have imagined the inspiration their work would create centuries later, not just in visiting this wild landscape but in encouraging others to take on tasks that appear insurmountable. 

It’s this inspiration that the founders behind Skellig Six18 are trying to harness with the creation of their young Irish whiskey brand. The trio that drives the distillery are all local to the land, having grown up in Cahersiveen, the small town that looks out across the Atlantic towards the Skellig islands and the closer island of Valentia on Ireland’s west coast. It’s a wild place that’s filled with ancient lore and solid tradition that attracts coachloads of tourists every day, rain or shine.  

Island life is unusual – it’s isolated, lacking in raw materials and defined by its separation from the mainland. For an island community to thrive, it needs to create solid trading routes and maintain an unshakeable sense of place. Entrepreneurs thrive on islands and coastal regions as they’re forced to reckon with meagre resources in the face of ever-changing weather conditions – change is a constant ingredient. And so it is with the Skellig Six18 Distillery, a whiskey maker forged in 2019 and now beginning to reveal its identity.

Alongside grain and blended-whiskey products, it aims to specialise in single pot still whiskey, Ireland’s indigenous whiskey style that uses a mash bill of malted and unmalted barley, as well as other grains. The unmalted or green barley delivers a creamy texture to the whiskey as well as driving ever more spice and texture to the pour. 

Skellig Six18 put its maturation warehouses right in the path of the salt-heavy Atlantic winds, hoping to turn the ever-changing weather to its advantage, allowing the wood of their casks to bend and breathe as it pulls a marine personality into the liquid inside. While these casks mature, Skellig Six18 produces a range of sourced whiskey products and its own gin.  

Skellig Six18 Single Pot Still

Its first core release, Skellig Triple Cask Single Pot Still, is a non-age statement bottling that was matured in ex-bourbon and then finished in a Pedro Ximenez sherry cask before a short period in a formerly peated whiskey cask. This provides a very gentle touch of peat to the sweet and fruity notes of the pot still. Triple distillation smooths the edges of this whiskey further, and copper fastened with a 43% ABV.

Skellig Six18 Small Batch PX Cask

This is a blend of grain and pot still whiskey that’s matured in ex-bourbon and finished in PX sherry casks. Bottled at 40%, the pot still element marries beautifully with the lighter grain notes, putting a rich gloss over the herbal undercut of grain. Drenching both is a sheen of sherried red fruit that carries the nose and the palate.