M-m-m-m-madness… The lyrics by Muse’s Madness directly came to mind when receiving this beautiful package by the Irish Method and Madness. The bright colours, the striking design and the words ‘Mulberry Casks’ can mean only one thing: we’ve got an unconventional whiskey right here.

We hadn’t heard of the brand before, to be honest, and they describe it very well: Method and Madness is “A new Irish Whiskey brand hatched from the minds of the Masters and Apprentices at Midleton.” From what we’ve seen, we’d describe it as a brand that combines art, experimentation and mastership to bring together the best of the new and old methods of making whisky. With a dash of madness, that’s how we like it.

So this whiskey is micro distilled at Midleton and has matured on bourbon casks, before being finished in Asian Mulberry casks. We haven’t seen that before. There’s an old Mulberry tree in the courtyard of a a small town near us and even by looking at that tree, you can tell this is a very different type of wood than oak for example. Gotta love the Irish for being able to use other types of wood, it shakes things up a little bit. We wonder that impact it has on the flavours:

We’re not sure  if the casks held anything like mulberries or other kinds of fruit juice before, but it definitely tastes like it’s infused with it. It’s a great twist, which almost feels like cheating, but it works very well!