There are bottles you drink, and there are bottles you sit with. Midleton Very Rare, the 2015 bottling, belongs firmly in the second category — a whiskey that asks you to slow down, to pay attention, to remember that Irish whiskey was once the most prized spirit on earth and that a handful of people in County Cork never stopped acting like it.
Midleton Very Rare is the flagship annual release from Ireland's most storied distillery complex, each vintage hand-selected by the Master Distiller from a private reserve of exceptional casks. The 2015 edition, now a decade old on the shelf, has become increasingly difficult to find, which accounts for the ambitious price tag north of a thousand pounds. Whether that number makes sense depends entirely on what you're after. If you want bang-for-buck daily drinking, look elsewhere. If you want a piece of Irish whiskey history in a glass, this is one of the more legitimate ways to get it.
At 40% ABV, this is bottled at the gentle end of the spectrum — a deliberate choice that speaks to the Midleton house philosophy of balance over brute force. There's no cask strength bravado here, no attempt to knock you sideways. Instead, the blend leans into the silky, triple-distilled character that Midleton does better than almost anyone. It's a whiskey built for texture and nuance rather than volume.
The NAS designation means we're trusting the blender's art rather than chasing a number on the label, and with the Very Rare range, that trust has historically been well placed. Each vintage draws from both pot still and grain whiskey stocks, married together to create something that feels seamless — the kind of blend where you stop trying to pick apart the components and simply appreciate the whole.
Tasting Notes
I'll let the glass speak for itself here. This is a whiskey that rewards patience — give it twenty minutes to open up and it will meet you more than halfway. What I will say is that the 2015 vintage sits in the sweet spot of the Very Rare series: old enough to have developed genuine depth, recent enough that the spirit still carries energy and life. It drinks like something considerably older than many NAS releases dare to.
The Verdict
At £1,100, this is a collector's whiskey as much as a drinker's whiskey, and I suspect most bottles that remain are being held rather than opened. That's a shame, because Midleton Very Rare was never meant to be a trophy — it was meant to be poured. The 2015 bottling is refined, confident, and unmistakably Irish in the best sense: warm without being cloying, complex without being showy. It earns its 7.7 out of 10 by doing exactly what great blended Irish whiskey should do — making the difficult look effortless. The price will narrow the audience, but for those who can stretch to it, this is a genuine piece of the Midleton legacy.
Best Served
Neat, in a tulip glass, after dinner. Add three or four drops of room-temperature water after the first sip — it opens like a window thrown wide on a spring morning. This is an evening whiskey, best paired with good conversation and absolutely nothing else competing for your attention. If you must have accompaniment, a square of dark chocolate with sea salt will do nicely, but honestly, the whiskey doesn't need the help.
