Jameson spirit, Gilbey’s casks and a birdwatcher’s nickname.

Redbreast is a single pot still Irish whiskey made by Irish Distillers, the Pernod Ricard subsidiary, at the New Midleton Distillery in County Cork. It began life not at a distillery but with a wine merchant. English Wikipedia, citing Irish Distillers’ single pot still history site, says W&A Gilbey was founded in London in 1857 and had opened a branch in Dublin by 1861, on the street now called O’Connell Street. At the time, distilleries commonly sold new spirit to wine merchants, or “bonders,” who had a ready supply of casks from importing fortified wines and matured the whiskey themselves under bond. Gilbey’s aged its whiskey in its own sherry casks in bonded warehouses on Dublin’s Harcourt Street and sold it under its own labels.

The spirit came from John Jameson & Son’s Bow Street Distillery in Dublin. English Wikipedia describes a Jameson “Castle JJ Liqueur” 12-year-old whiskey, sold by 1903 in a bottle of similar shape and markings, as the likely forerunner, and dates the first official use of the name to 1912, when Gilbey’s referred to the sale of “Redbreast” J.J. Liqueur Whiskey 12 Year Old. A July 2019 press release from Pernod Ricard Deutschland likewise says archive references place the Redbreast bottle in 1912, when Jameson agreed to supply Gilbey’s with a new whiskey from Bow Street. The name, English Wikipedia says, began as a nickname from the Gilbey’s chairman of the day, a keen birdwatcher, after the robin redbreast.

The arrangement outlived the consolidation of the Irish industry. Irish Distillers was formed in 1966 by the merger of John Power & Son, John Jameson & Son and the Cork Distilleries Company. In 1968, English Wikipedia says, it decided to phase out supplying bonded whiskey to merchants such as Gilbey’s, which put the brand at risk; after appeals from Gilbey’s, Irish Distillers agreed to keep supplying spirit for Redbreast. When the group closed its Dublin distilleries and moved production to a purpose-built distillery at Midleton in County Cork — established in 1975, according to English Wikipedia — Redbreast moved south with it.

A relaunch, a style and a robin in flight.

Gilbey’s stopped producing Redbreast in 1985 and agreed in 1986 to sell the brand to Irish Distillers, English Wikipedia says, citing Peter Mulryan’s The Whiskeys of Ireland (2002). Irish Distillers itself joined Pernod Ricard in 1988, according to the group’s German subsidiary. After several years off the market, Redbreast was relaunched in 1991 as a single 12-year-old. The range has since grown to include a 12 Year Old Cask Strength, first released in 2011; 15, 21 and 27 year olds; and cask-finished editions such as the Lustau Edition, finished in sherry butts seasoned by Bodegas Lustau, and the Kentucky Oak Edition.

The style is central to the brand’s story. Single pot still whiskey is distilled in pot stills from a mash of both malted and unmalted barley, which separates it from single malt. English Wikipedia, citing Fionnán O’Connor’s A Glass Apart (2015), describes the style as historically unique to Ireland and says it fell out of favour in the 20th century as blended whiskeys rose. It names Redbreast and Green Spot as the two single pot still whiskeys produced almost continuously since the early 1900s.

The bird has always carried the identity. Irish Distillers unveiled new packaging for the range more than a century after the brand’s launch, The Spirits Business reported on 4 July 2019. The labels show the robin, hand-drawn by the Irish illustrator Denise Nestor, in different poses of flight across the expressions; tasting notes were added to the front label on a lighter cream, textured background; the bottle shape was kept but given raised embossing; and coloured capsules were introduced to tell the expressions apart. The 21 Year Old moved into a wooden box. Packaging of the World credited the work to the agency Nude Brand Creation, with Mike Parsonson as creative director and Geoff Halpin as typographer, and said the bottle shape dates back to at least 1912. Parsonson described Redbreast there as “a quietly confident brand.”

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all Irish whiskey names: Redbreast, Teeling, Powers, Kilbeggan, Writers’ Tears, Green Spot and Midleton. Irish whiskey brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family firms that still carry a founder’s name to labels that now belong to much larger drinks groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a corner shop to a hotel bar.

An Irish whiskey brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single bottle than by a label, a name and the place it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the place where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its whiskey is actually distilled, matured and bottled.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its whiskey is made and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A robin taken literally, and a family of pot still whiskeys.

The robin has also been taken literally. For Redbreast 12 Year Old, Irish Distillers released a limited bird feeder edition in which a copper cage around the bottle could be removed and used to feed birds, tied to fundraising for BirdLife International. D&AD’s 2021 Packaging Design entry for the Redbreast Bird Feeder Bottle names Irish Distillers as the client and describes the design as the work of Nude Brand Creation.

Recognition has followed the range. English Wikipedia lists Redbreast 15 Year Old as Irish Whiskey of the Year in 2007, and gold medals at the 2018 International Wine and Spirits Competition and the 2019 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Pernod Ricard Deutschland’s 2019 release calls Redbreast the world’s best-selling and most decorated Irish single pot still whiskey, a description that is the company’s own.

Ownership keeps the brand close to its original source. Irish Distillers, whose 1966 merger brought the Jameson and Powers firms together, also makes Powers, and Redbreast is made at Midleton alongside Green Spot and the Midleton range. The brand’s own site is redbreastwhiskey.com.

For a design guide, Redbreast shows how a single bird, drawn by hand and set in motion, can carry a whiskey from a Dublin wine merchant’s bonded warehouse to a Cork distillery across more than a century of labels. Compare Green Spot, the other long-running single pot still name, and Midleton, the distillery’s own label. For this guide we use robin red, bottle green and label cream with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Redbreast’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.