Blackpitts is named for the old tanning district of Dublin's Liberties, the neighbourhood Teeling calls home, and it is the distillery's first peated single malt — released in 2020 from spirit they actually distilled themselves, rather than sourced. That makes it a milestone bottle: the first proof of what Teeling's own stills could do with smoke.
The recipe is unusual on every axis. The malted barley is peated to around 55ppm — Islay territory — but then triple-distilled in the traditional Irish style, which softens and rounds everything the smoke wants to do. The result is finished in a combination of ex-bourbon and ex-Sauternes wine casks, the latter lending that distinctive dessert-wine sweetness that has become a Teeling signature.
What you get is genuinely uncommon. Triple distillation strips out the heavier oils that normally carry peat, so the smoke here behaves differently — it floats rather than sits, perfumed rather than tarry. Pair that with Sauternes sweetness and you have a whiskey that occupies its own small territory between Speyside, Islay, and the Loire.
Bottled at 46% ABV, non-chill-filtered, it has the body to carry the layering without needing cask strength to assert itself. It rewards patience in the glass — a few minutes open up the fruit beneath the smoke, and a small drop of water lifts the Sauternes character noticeably.
Blackpitts is not a whiskey for someone seeking either pure peat or pure Irish softness. It is for the drinker curious about what happens in the space between — and that space, it turns out, is rather lovely.
