Cooley 17 Year Old - That Boutique-y Whisky Company - Batch 1 - 2017 Release

Cooley distillery in Louth was founded in 1987 by John Teeling, a graduate of Harvard business school, using the column stills from the site's original industrial alcohol plant and pot stills from the defunct Old Comber distillery. Cooley began production in 1989, increasing the number of whiskey distilleries in Ireland by 50% at a stroke - Midleton and Bushmills had been the only remaining operational distilleries since the 1970s.

Cooley made their mark quickly, relaunching historic Irish whiskey brands such as Tyrconnell and Kilbeggan and releasing innovative whiskeys including Ireland’s first modern era peated malt whiskey, Connemara, and its first commercial single grain whiskey, Greenore. In 1993, with Cooley in financial difficulty and the distillery in mothballs, a £25m offer from Irish Distillers, who intended to shut the business down, was blocked by competition authorities. Cooley was bought by Jim Beam in 2012 and is now owned by Beam Suntory.

That Boutique-y Whisky Company is an independent bottling subsidiary of Atom Group, the company that owns Master of Malt and Maverick Drinks. That Boutique-y Whisky Co.’s first bottlings appeared in 2012 and are easily recognisable by their small bottles and garish cartoon labels depicting oblique references to each distillery’s history and characteristics. The company does not reveal the whisky’s vintage on their labels, and only began using age statements in 2016.

That Boutique-y Whisky Company are prolific bottlers, with over 800 releases in their first decade. The company are also distinguished by the innovation of their offering, particularly in regard to world whiskies, and are often the first UK bottlers to release whiskies from new world distilleries. That Boutique-y Whisky Co.'s parent company Atom Group was purchased by Budweiser brewers AB-InBev in 2018; in 2024 the takeover was reversed when Atom bought themselves back.