There are bottles you drink, and there are bottles that carry time inside them. Midleton Very Rare, bottled in 1999, belongs firmly in the second category. This is a whiskey that sat on someone's shelf — or in a collector's cabinet, or behind the locked glass of a specialist shop — while the world turned over twice. Holding it now, pouring it now, feels like opening a letter from a version of Irish whiskey that no longer quite exists.
Midleton Very Rare has always been Ireland's quiet answer to prestige Scotch. Launched in 1984 by the legendary Master Distiller Barry Crockett, each annual release was a hand-selected blend of pot still and grain whiskeys, no two years identical. The 1999 bottling lands in what many collectors consider the golden stretch of the series — late nineties releases that arrived before the Irish whiskey boom rewrote the economics of the category entirely. At £1,750, you are not simply paying for liquid. You are paying for scarcity, for provenance, and for the privilege of tasting something that cannot be made again.
What to Expect
This is a blended Irish whiskey bottled at 40% ABV with no age statement, though the components in any given Midleton Very Rare release have historically ranged from relatively young grain to considerably older pot still whiskeys. The style tends toward refinement rather than power — think silk, not thunder. At this ABV, expect something approachable and composed, a whiskey that rewards patience and attention rather than demanding it. Irish pot still character — that distinctive oily, spiced, slightly honeyed quality — should form the backbone, with the grain component adding lightness and length.
A 1999 bottling will have had over a quarter-century of additional time in glass. While whiskey does not mature in the bottle the way wine does, micro-oxidation and time can soften edges, round out certain volatile notes, and lend a kind of settled composure to the pour. Whether that translates to a meaningfully different drinking experience from a freshly bottled release is a debate that could fuel an evening. I suspect it does, even if only slightly.
The Verdict
I rate this 8.1 out of 10 — and I want to be honest about what that number means. This is a very good whiskey attached to an extraordinary story. The liquid itself, judged purely on flavour at 40%, sits in accomplished territory without quite reaching the heights of cask-strength or single-cask Irish releases that have emerged in recent years. But context matters. This bottle represents a specific moment in Irish whiskey history, a year when the entire category was still the underdog, and Midleton Very Rare was one of the few Irish whiskeys daring to charge a premium. For collectors, for historians of the spirit, for anyone who wants to understand where modern Irish whiskey came from, this bottle earns its place at the table. It is a piece of living heritage, and it drinks like one — graceful, considered, and quietly proud.
Best Served
Pour two fingers neat into a wide-bowled glass and let it breathe for at least fifteen minutes. A bottle this old and this significant deserves unhurried attention. Add no more than three or four drops of room-temperature water if you feel it needs opening up. Drink it slowly on a quiet evening — perhaps after dinner, with no competing flavours, no distractions. This is a whiskey for conversation and contemplation, not cocktails. If you have the means, share it with someone who understands what they are holding.
