82 Whisky Magazine | Issue 161Castaway Jennifer Nickerson
E
agle-eyed readers will spot
Jennifer’s name from our
Icons of Whisky awards,
where she was awarded
Global Irish Whiskey
Brand Ambassador. Her whiskey brand,
Tipperary Boutique Distillery, based
on her husband Liam’s family farm in
Ballindoney, released their first whiskey
in 2016.
“The Rising” was an 11-years-old
independently bottled single-malt
Irish whiskey, limited to only 1916
bottles, was made in celebration of the
centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising.
We wonder if sending this Irish
whiskey-making Scottish lass to a
desert island would mean she chooses
Irish or Scotch to accompany her... let’s
find out.WHISKY #1
Glenrothes 1988
I know I’ve splashed out on my first
choice, but it’s a single malt distilled
in one of the years I lived there. Rich
and dark and fruity, it incongruously
reminds me of summer days, hitting
tennis balls against the whisky
warehouse, eating raspberries from the
canes (after brushing off the bugs), and
being eaten alive by midges.WHISKY #2
Compass Box Hedonism
This whisky reminds me of a
conversation I had with the wonderful
Robin Robinson on a trip to New York. I
naively declared that single grain wasn’t
really my thing and he said that I hadto try Hedonism.
Technically this is
a blended grain, but
it’s a real celebration
of what grain whiskey can
(and should) be: vanilla and
shortbread sweetness, layered with
citrus and spice to make something that
is far more complex than I’d normally
expect from grain whisky.WHISKY #3
Lagavulin 16
My cupboard and my heart wouldn’t
be full without this whiskey. It’s one of
those drams that I can recognise across
a room. I remember when my dad first
tried to introduce me to peated malt
when I was in my late teens, I couldn’t
get past that smoke to appreciate the
sea spray and deceptive sweetness,
that big heavy peat smack hiding all the
sweet elegant complexity below. I’m
forever grateful that my dad laughed at
me and started on a journey to get me
to appreciate peated whiskies.WHISKY #4
Daftmill 2006 Winter Release
Frances (Cuthbert, co-founder of
Daftmill) was one of our inspirations
for Tipperary. He told us how he had
grown malting barley for years before
installing his own distillery. He took us
through everything, generous with his
time and happy to talk about anything
from farming technicalities with Liam,
to distilling details with Dad. He had
5-year-old whiskey at that point, butwasn’t in any hurry
to bottle. He was
relaxed and unrushed
and determined to do
everything right.
That dedication to quality and terroir
spoke to something inside me, and it’s
informed everything we’ve done since.
You can still get a bottle of Daftmill’s
most recent 2006 Winter Release
online and I’d invite everyone who
gets their hands on one to try it. It’s
beautiful – soft fruits and honey and
ginger spice.WHISKY #5
Tipperary Watershed
I have to close out with one of my
own! This is the first whiskey that we
cut to bottling strength with water
from Ballindoney farm, introducing
the first aspect of our own land to our
independent bottlings. I’d happily have
a dram every evening while I watched
the sun go down on my desert island.
It’s the perfect accompaniment to a nice
fish dish too.A BRIEF FINAL LUXURY
Well it wouldn’t be my phone – being
stranded without my emails on a
desert island sounds like heaven. A
hammock. With all that whisky, I’d need
a hammock to kick back and watch
the sun go down. If you can throw in a
solar-powered Kindle for me too, that’d
be ideal. I did consider being honest
and saying my dog, but I think people
think I’m weird enough about them as
it is!We send some of the whisky world’s great
and good to a desert island. What will they
decide to take with them?
ISLAND LIFE
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