The best part of the Teeling Distillery tour isn’t on the tour. It’s the moment afterwards, standing under a neon “Bottle Your Own” sign, pulling your own whiskey straight from a cask, corking it, hand-labelling it, and walking out with a bottle nobody else in the world has. We filled a cask-strength Single Pot Still from a Portuguese oak red wine cask at 60.9% and carried it home. That bottle is now the thing every friend asks about.
Teeling is the distillery that put whiskey production back inside Dublin’s city walls. This is our full review of the visit: the four tour options, what the Distillery Select tasting actually pours, the Bottle Your Own single casks and their prices, the food, and an honest verdict on who this tour is for and who should book something else.
Teeling Distillery tour, at a glance. Teeling Whiskey Distillery sits at 13 to 17 Newmarket in the Liberties, Dublin 8. Four guided experiences run from the same production tour, splitting only at the tasting: the Teeling Tasting Tour (€22), the Trinity Tasting Tour (€26), the Distillery Select Tasting Tour (€35, the one we booked) and the Connoisseur Cask Collection Experience (€50). All four core whiskeys are bottled at 46% ABV, non-chill filtered. The Bottle Your Own single casks run from €100 to €325. We rate the Distillery Select tour 3.5 out of 5 as a tasting experience, and recommend it without hesitation as a Dublin visit.
Why Teeling matters: the distillery that brought whiskey back to Dublin
To understand why standing on the still floor at Teeling feels like a big deal, you need the context. Dublin was once one of the whiskey capitals of the world. Then it wasn’t. For more than a century, no whiskey was distilled in the city.
Teeling changed that. When Jack and Stephen Teeling opened the Newmarket distillery in 2015, it was the first new distillery to operate in Dublin in over 125 years. The site sits in the Liberties, the historic heart of Dublin distilling, a short walk from where the old George Roe and John Jameson operations once ran. The tour opens on exactly this story, in a room lined with a huge historic map of the city’s lost distilleries, which is a genuinely effective way to set the scene before you see a single still.
The production is real and it is running while you visit. Teeling distils on three copper pot stills named Alison, Natalie and Rebecca, after the Teeling daughters, and you walk the gantry directly above the fermentation washbacks and the stills while spirit is flowing. Seeing new make actually come off the still, rather than a static museum piece, is the difference between a tour and a tourist stop. Teeling has also leaned hard into sustainability and was named Sustainable Distillery of the Year, a direction worth knowing about if that matters to how you choose where to spend your money.
How the Teeling Distillery tour works: four experiences, one production walk
Here’s the part worth understanding before you book, because it changes which ticket makes sense. Every Teeling tour is the same guided walk through production and history. What you pay for is the tasting at the end.
The four options currently on offer:
Teeling Tasting Tour, €22 per person. The guided tour plus a Teeling Small Batch and a handcrafted seasonal whiskey cocktail. A non-alcoholic cocktail option is available on request at reception.
Teeling Trinity Tasting Tour, €26 per person. The tour plus the “Trinity”: Small Batch, Single Grain and Single Malt. The best-value way to taste across the core range.
Distillery Select Tasting Tour, €35 per person. The one we took. The tour plus four whiskeys: Small Batch, Single Malt, Single Pot Still and the peated Blackpitts.
Connoisseur Cask Collection Experience, €50 per person. A smaller, more intimate group and the tasting the experienced drinker actually wants: Small Batch plus a limited-edition Distillery Exclusive Blend, a Single Pot Still Single Cask and a Vintage Single Malt.
Before the tasting, the tour walks you through a maturation display that is better than most. One station shows a cask cross-section behind glass at three stages of its life, so you can see the angels’ share climb from roughly 12% loss, to 25%, to 50% and beyond, and grasp just how much whiskey the warehouse quietly drinks. A second wall breaks down cask influence by type: Madeira gives dried fruit, ginger and spice, port leans towards chocolate, rum brings dried fruit and raisin, and bourbon delivers vanilla, honey and caramel. It’s a clear, hands-on way to teach cask maturation to people who’ve never thought about wood before.
The Distillery Select tasting: four Teeling whiskeys, and the one that stood out
The Distillery Select flight pours four core Teeling expressions, all at 46% ABV and non-chill filtered. Here is how they compare, using the notes from the distillery’s own tasting mat alongside our impression on the day.
| Small Batch | Single Pot Still | Single Malt | Blackpitts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Style | Blend, rum cask finish | Single pot still | Single malt | Peated single malt |
| Nose | Rum raisin, vanilla, allspice | Cinnamon, honeycomb, floral | Vibrant fresh fruit, chocolate | Barbecue smoke, cloves, fresh citrus |
| Palate | Spiced fruit, gentle sweetness | Baked biscuit, spice, vanilla | Fresh fruit, chocolate, spice | Grilled pineapple, applewood smoke, allspice |
| Finish | Long, warming | Long, lingering spice and sweetness | Long, oak and fresh fruit | Long, savoury wood smoke |
| ABV | 46% | 46% | 46% | 46% |
| For whom | The easy-going introduction | The pick of the flight | The fruit-forward drinker | The peat curious |
Our favourite was clear. The Teeling Single Pot Still is the one that rewards attention.
Teeling Single Pot Still tasting note
Nose: Cinnamon, honeycomb, a soft floral lift.
Palate: Baked biscuit, spiced vanilla, a thread of honey. The pot still texture gives it a weight the others don’t have.
Finish: Long, with spice and sweetness lingering well past the swallow.
ABV: 46% | Style: Single pot still, non-chill filtered
Single pot still is Ireland’s signature style, made from a mash of malted and unmalted barley distilled in a pot still, and it’s the category that gives Irish whiskey its creamy, spicy backbone. Teeling’s version is the reason the whole flight is worth doing.
Bottle Your Own: the reason to make the trip
This is where Teeling separates itself. In the shop, under a neon “Bottle Your Own” sign, two single casks are set up on tap and you fill, cork and hand-label your own bottle straight from the wood.
On our visit the two casks were:
Single Cask #37943, Distillery Exclusive 01. Dublin-distilled Single Pot Still, fully matured in a red wine (Portuguese oak) cask, filled 24 May 2018, bottled at cask strength 60.9% ABV. Price: €100.
Single Cask #39732, Distillery Exclusive 02. One of Teeling’s oldest single malts to be fully matured in a rum cask, distilled 2001, bottled at 53.9% ABV. Price: €325.
We went with the red wine cask at 60.9%, a 70cl bottle hand-labelled on the spot for €100. The price gap to the 2001 rum cask is significant, and it comes down to age and rarity: a 2001 single malt in rum wood is a genuinely scarce thing, and €325 reflects that. Both are cask strength, both are single cask, and neither exists anywhere else.
If you only do one thing at Teeling, do this. It costs more than the tour, but a cask-strength single cask you drew and bottled yourself is a better souvenir than anything on the shelf, and it makes for the kind of pour you save for people who’ll appreciate the story.
Note that the standard shop bottlings are separate and cheaper: a Distillery Exclusive bottling runs €60, and a personalised bottling €65. The €100 to €325 casks are the Bottle Your Own single casks specifically.
The Summer Iced Tea: a Teeling cocktail worth making at home
Some tour tastings on the day were served a Summer Iced Tea, and it looked like the best thing on the bar on a warm afternoon: bright, long and refreshing rather than heavy. Teeling’s build, straight off the recipe board, is worth recreating at home.
Teeling Summer Iced Tea
40ml Teeling Small Batch 30ml Granny’s Garden Tea 20ml Aperol 20ml lemon juice 10ml ginger liqueur
Shake over ice, strain into an ice-filled glass, and garnish as you like. It’s proof that Small Batch, with its rum-cask sweetness, works as well long and cold as it does neat.
Phoenix Café and the Bang Bang Bar: where to land afterwards
After bottling, we ate in the Phoenix Café downstairs: a frozen Irish coffee, iced and topped with coffee beans, alongside a proper pastry-topped pie with a ramekin of relish. It’s a genuinely good lunch and the right way to close out a visit, not an afterthought food counter.
The on-site Bang Bang Bar is the other thing to know about. It pours exclusive and older Teelings by the dram, and for an experienced whiskey drinker it may be the real destination. More on that in the verdict.
Practical details: booking, prices, hours and location
Location: Teeling Whiskey Distillery, 13 to 17 Newmarket, Dublin 8, Ireland, in the Liberties.
Opening hours:Monday to Friday 11am to 6pm, Saturday 11am to 7pm, Sunday and bank holidays 11am to 6pm.
Tours and prices:Teeling Tasting Tour €22, Trinity Tasting Tour €26, Distillery Select Tasting Tour €35, Connoisseur Cask Collection Experience €50.
Bottle Your Own: single casks €100 to €325; standard Distillery Exclusive bottling €60, personalised €65.
Booking: book ahead online, especially in summer and at weekends. Private tours for groups of 15 or more can be arranged in several languages.
Our take on it: a must-visit in Dublin, with one thing to know before you book
Teeling is a straightforward recommendation. If you are visiting Dublin and want to see a working distillery in the city where Irish whiskey was born, this is a must-visit, and the Bottle Your Own experience alone justifies the trip.
Here is the honest nuance. The guided tour is pitched at people who want to learn about Irish whiskey, not at people who already know it. It’s warm, well-told and beautifully produced, but if you can already explain the difference between single pot still and single malt, the walk itself won’t teach you much. That’s why we rate the Distillery Select tour 3.5 out of 5 as a tasting experience: excellent for a first proper distillery visit, a little light if you’re already deep in the category.
So book by who you are. If this is your introduction to Irish whiskey, the Distillery Select Tour at €35 is the sweet spot, or take the Trinity at €26 if you want to save a little while everyone shares the same tour anyway. If you’re an aficionado, or you’ve toured Teeling before, skip straight to the Connoisseur Cask Collection Experience for the exclusive and vintage pours, or simply walk into the Bang Bang Bar and drink the rare stuff by the dram. And whichever ticket you choose, leave time and budget to bottle your own. That’s the part you’ll still be talking about years later.
If you want to try Teeling whiskey you can find it here at these shops.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Teeling Distillery tour? It’s a guided tour of Teeling Whiskey Distillery at Newmarket in Dublin’s Liberties, the first new distillery to operate in Dublin in over 125 years when it opened in 2015. You walk the working production floor above three copper pot stills, learn the history of Dublin whiskey, and finish with a guided tasting.
How much does the Teeling Distillery tour cost? Prices run from €22 to €50 per person depending on the tasting. The Teeling Tasting Tour is €22, the Trinity Tasting Tour €26, the Distillery Select Tasting Tour €35, and the Connoisseur Cask Collection Experience €50. Bottle Your Own single casks are priced separately, from €100 to €325.
What whiskeys do you taste on the Distillery Select tour? The Distillery Select Tasting Tour pours four Teeling whiskeys, all at 46% ABV and non-chill filtered: the Small Batch, the Single Malt, the Single Pot Still, and the peated Blackpitts single malt. Our pick of the four was the Single Pot Still, for its baked-biscuit, spiced-vanilla weight.
Can you bottle your own whiskey at Teeling Distillery? Yes. Teeling’s Bottle Your Own station lets you fill, cork and hand-label a bottle straight from a single cask on tap. On our visit the casks were a red wine (Portuguese oak) Single Pot Still at 60.9% ABV for €100, and a 2001 rum-cask single malt at 53.9% ABV for €325. Each bottle is unique to you.
Which Teeling tour is best for a whiskey enthusiast? Experienced drinkers should book the Connoisseur Cask Collection Experience (€50), a smaller-group tasting of Distillery Exclusive, Single Pot Still Single Cask and Vintage Single Malt whiskeys. Alternatively, visit the on-site Bang Bang Bar, which pours exclusive and older Teelings by the dram.
Is the Teeling Distillery worth visiting in Dublin? Yes. It’s a working city-centre distillery with real production, a strong maturation walk, an on-site bar and café, and the standout Bottle Your Own experience. It’s an easy recommendation for any Dublin trip, and best suited to those wanting to learn about Irish whiskey rather than seasoned collectors after rarities.
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