The sun that burned bright, beaming down, can find itself engulfed by cloud cover, only able to watch as the grass it once fed grows green and slack at the downpour of rain. In the midst of all this change, it seems hard to believe anything can remain the same, but on the edge of Lakeview Estate for the past 300 years, four stone walls have stood proud. Deep within, unscathed by wind, rain or snow, tawny and burgundy casks lay dormant. Each one awaits the nod of their master, the Wayward descendant at the centre of these eponymous spirits. Maurice O’Connell.
Wayward Irish Spirit isn’t just the name of the O’Connell family whiskey, it’s also the attitude which has guided them for generations, leading them to the grounds that they’ve called home for more than 900 years. Direct descendants of Ireland’s proudest son and the original Wayward Irishman, Daniel O’Connell, the family set out with the goal to create distinctive modern whiskey, directly influenced by the natural beauty of their family home whilst always being anchored by the family motto of doing things ‘their way’. Never taking shortcuts and always ensuring that whatever they produce is done so by their hand, and as admirable as that attitude is, doing things their way hasn’t always been easy. The craftspeople at Wayward Irish Spirits work hard, cultivating their own barely, sacrificing large-scale production for unique hand-crafted quality that directly influences the unique taste of their small-batch whiskeys. This is the same for their Liberator Malt Whiskey in Tawny Port Finish, a passion of Maurice’s, using the heritage of whiskey bonding, an old tradition borne of merchants using their empty wine, port and sherry barrels to create unique tasting whiskeys, no two ever the same, with Lakeview contributing its unique micro-climate to ensure that the maturation process yields truly remarkable results.
And going forward the O’Connell’s Wayward attitude remains unchanged, as their ambition to have a grain-to-glass distillery will fully encapsulate what the O’Connell family spirit is all about, perfecting distinctive modern whiskeys directly inspired by the lands of their tempestuous paradise, always striving to do things ‘their way.’
Wayward Irish Spirits
