Once in a while, something comes along and captures your attention in a special way. On an unusually sunny California day in October 2023, I spent two hours talking to Irish whiskey historian and author Fionnán O’Connor. For starters, it was compelling and engaging. As of now, I’m a card-carrying member of his secret army of supporters. Yes, this rabbit hole goes deep.
Our conversation was steeped in authentic love of whiskey and history all at once. His life is an exercise in duality. On one hand, there is an ocean of history to explore the journey of Irish whiskey. On the other, there is a tremendous amount of misinformation that tips the signal-to-noise scale. However, Fionnán is like a stalwart lighthouse perched on the coast, his light serving as both a guide and focal point.
His second book, Créatúr, has been in the works for nearly a decade. The name refers to whiskey as ‘the creature’ made by common men and women and borne of raw materials. According to the press release, “It’s a book about the way we drank and the ways we just might. It’s a deoch an dorais. No bullshit, just the créatúr. Along the way, we’ll be talking to some wonderful friends doing things that I admire, as well as with some folks who don’t always get a look-in: barley farmers, publicans, tillage researchers, ethnomusicologists, lab analysts, mixologists, folklorists, a Phylloxera historian, a peatland scientist, Willie Murphy, all sorts… Ultimately, Créatúr is a little bit fluid and hopefully no less pungent for it either.”
If you’re among the crowd that considers your fervor to be in the realm of “whiskey geek” then this is a project you need to pay attention to. Not only does it feed the monster for those looking for specific and granular information about the deep history of Irish whiskey, but it also comes with an opportunity to taste whiskey made from ancient recipes. Actual history in your glass.
Of the many projects out there that touch on whiskey, there are few that capture the imagination like Créatúr does. It’s an authentic and in-depth foray into separating the fact from fiction when it comes to the real history of Irish whiskey.
Get involved with this crowd-funding effort. Opportunities like this don’t come around often.
It’s a book about the way we drank and the ways we just might. It’s a deoch an dorais. No bullshit, just the créatúr.
Big Man Wee Dram Discussion on Whiskey Network
On October 31st, I joined Greg Swartz on a special episode of his broadcast Big Man Wee Dram and spent some time with him and Fionnán. We could have gone on for hours!
Official Press Release
Scheduled for publication in 2026, Créatúr will be the second book by Irish whiskey historian and A Glass Apart author Fionnán O’Connor, with photography by Marcus Lynam. Titled after one of Ireland’s more peculiar words for whiskey, Créatúr is a book about ‘the creature’ as a creature: made from raw materials, distilled by real people. And to fund its creation, we’re reaching out to real people in the whiskey world to join us in a support community and a one-off cask share of Irish single pot still whiskey. We go live on October 31st at 20:00 IST/GMT. (Just in time for Samhain…)
Site link: creatur.ie
Créatúr’s Fundraising Community and Cask Share (250 Euro)
To fund the book’s creation, we are seeking to build a community of 400 supporters. Upon a contribution of 250 euro, Créatúr’s supporters will receive:
- In 2024-2025, a calendar of quarterly online chats and in-person educational events we’re calling ‘The Poor Creature Hedge School‘, chatting with our distiller friends through some of the most niche and unmarketable whiskey topics on the internet. (We mean that too.) Due to the unhelpful laws of physics, the in-person events will be subject to capacity and ticketed at a nominal running cost on a first come first serve basis. They will all be in Ireland. When the book’s in hand at last, we’ll disband into the night as best we’re still able.
- In 2026, a copy of Créatúr signed and editioned by the author, with your name included (if you want) as a supporter.
- In 2028, one 500ml cask strength bottle of An Créatúr Bocht (The Poor Creature), a single cask, single pot still whiskey triple distilled by Boann Distillery from 40% Malt, 40% Raw Barley, 15% Oats, and 5% rye, left to rest in an Oloroso sherry hogshead. Bonded and bottled by our friends at Two Stacks. It was distilled as part of Fionnán’s PhD research into lost Irish mash bills, from a 1940s ledger he uncovered in the Locke’s Collection of the National Library of Ireland. In homage to a classic age statement among Irish Pot Still whiskeys of the 1940s, it will be bottled as a seven year old. It will only ever be sold as a constituent part of the Créatúr book fundraiser.
About Créatúr
Nearly 10 years in the planning, Créatúr got away with it and got the cream as well. Part love letter, part ill-equipped guerrilla reading circle for the ransom of the soul of distilling in Ireland, Créatúr is a petty highway robbery on the side of Irish whiskey’s global road to wealth. Eminent persons have condemned the poor Créatúr for this brazen behaviour but Créatúr got nothing. Créatúr didn’t mean it. Créatúr’s liver is in the right place.
Indeed, Créatur’s main ambition until now had been to not become a drinking song. Créatur’s people were drinking songs but Créatúr’s read up on it. Créatúr doesn’t yet know the boiling point of linseed oil or candle wax or damp old cellar must but Créatúr’s keen to find out…and hopes you are too. I do anyway. For ten years this book has been fermenting at the back of other projects, most recently a five year PhD dissertation, and Créatúr’s fed up and tired and has views about it now.
Tracing the history of the Irish distilling tradition from its earliest primary manuscripts through the mash bills and procedures of closed Victorian distilleries to lost words for oaten poitín in the Donegal Rosses to classic 1960s bottlings to the inspiring distillers, bonders, blenders and bar-folk reshaping Irish drinks and spirits culture now, Créatúr (if you haven’t guessed) is a book about whiskey and the people who make it. And the people who made it. And the making of it too.
It’s a book about the way we drank and the ways we just might. It’s a deoch an dorais. No bullshit, just the créatúr. Along the way, we’ll be talking to some wonderful friends doing things that I admire, as well as with some folks who don’t always get a look-in: barley farmers, publicans, tillage researchers, ethnomusicologists, lab analysts, mixologists, folklorists, a Phylloxera historian, a peatland scientist, Willie Murphy, all sorts… Ultimately, Créatúr is a little bit fluid and hopefully no less pungent for it either.
Praise For Créatúr:
“A wicked, idle little creature! Conceited too. All he does all day is drink and sing and hold books upside down.” – Concerned Neighbour, Indebted to Your Columns
“That’s not it at all. It should be craythur. I would have said craythur.” – The Bore Who Brought It Up, Weekly
“Fionnán-and-án-ín? Tá an créatúr sin ullamh!” – An Sean-Bhean Bhoct, 1823 In Review
