Irish whiskey has long been dominated by a handful of large producers. Cooley Distillery, founded in 1987 in County Louth, was the first independently owned Irish whiskey distillery in generations — and its founder, John Teeling, built it deliberately as a challenge to the establishment. Cooley’s story is one of independence, experimentation, and a refusal to follow the conventions that other Irish producers treated as gospel.
Breaking Irish Rules
Conventional Irish whiskey is triple-distilled and unpeated — light, smooth, approachable. Cooley broke both rules: they produced peated Irish whiskey (a rarity), and experimented with double distillation. The peated expressions — including Connemara — proved that Irish whiskey could carry smoke without becoming Scotch, creating a distinctive category that showed the range Ireland’s whiskey culture had been artificially suppressing.
Mika’s Perspective
Cooley is interesting to me precisely because it challenged assumptions from inside a tradition. Irish whiskey has a reputation for softness and approachability — Cooley proved that reputation was a convention, not a necessity. At Bar Little Happiness, Cooley expressions give guests a way to understand Irish whiskey’s actual range, not just its dominant style. Available at the bar. Read the original Japanese column: https://little-happiness.jp/columns/cooley/
Bar Little Happiness | Hiroshima, Japan
Rum & Whisky specialists | 1,000+ bottles | English menu available
Open Mon–Sat 7PM–12:30AM, Sun 7PM–midnight
No cover charge. Walk-ins welcome.
english.little-happiness.jp