The Smart Way to Buy Whiskey: Start With a 5cl Sample

The most expensive whiskey you will ever buy is the bottle you don't like. At €50, €150 or €500, an untasted bottle is a guess — and Irish whiskey has too much variety for guessing. That is why we decant over 100 of our whiskeys into 5cl sample drams, poured from the same bottles we sell.

How it works

A 5cl dram is roughly two pub measures — enough for a proper nosing, tasting, and a second pass with a drop of water. Samples run from about €3 to €25 for pours of bottles costing up to €500. Every sample page links to its full bottle, and every participating bottle page links back to its sample, so the route from taste to decision is one click each way.

Three ways to use samples

1. Try before a big purchase. Considering a €140 Red Spot 15 or a €99 cask-strength Causeway? The dram costs a fraction of the mistake.

2. Build a flight. Pick a family and taste it side by side — the Redbreast ladder from 12 to Lustau to 15, or the Spot range from Green to Yellow to Blue. An evening's tasting for less than one bottle.

3. Taste the unrepeatable. Some samples come from allocated or closed-distillery bottles — the only affordable way to ever taste them.

From sample to bottle

When one wins you over, the full bottle is linked right on the sample's page. And if the bottle has moved on — allocation is real — our team can advise on the closest alternative or source a specific bottle for you.

International delivery is available. Delivery options, duties and import requirements vary by destination. For specialist or high-value orders, our team will assist with the most suitable delivery arrangement.