The Fighting 69th Regiment is one of oldest regiments in the United States, able to trace it’s history back to the American Revolution and being a big part of the American Civil War. The Fighting 69th has teamed up with Chris Leskowicz to create an Irish Whiskey that is both authentically Irish and uniquely American.
Zach: I’ve got a little bit of background, you were with Angel’s Envy and some rums, what got you into Distilling?
Chris: I’m not distilling, I’m blending.
Z: Oh blending, sorry.
C: The way I like to describe it, I’m not tryin to pat myself and be double jointed, is I think of distilling-and I highly respect master stillers-they’re like paint manufacturers. They make the raw product. But the blender is the guy that puts the paint on the canvas. I’ve been in this business for 35 years, I actually used to pop corks for a living. As that kinda changed, I went through Absolut, Bombay, Gran Marnier, Laurent Perrier Champagne, Bombay Sapphire and I got into Cruzan. I ended up meeting Jay Maltby, president of Cruzan rum, and worked together for about 10 years.
Somehow Jay knew Lincoln Henderson. Jay’s been the business a long time-Jay’s younger brother is dirt, Jay’s older than dirt.
Lincoln came out of Retirement…Lincoln’s, the one invented, believe it or not, besides doing bourbon, he’s the one that invented how to triple distil tequila. Before that they couldn’t. They couldn’t triple distill. If they did, they stripped out too much flavor.
He came out of retirement to do the bourbon, And he did that actually for his grandchildren. You know he’s got one son, one daughter, son has five sons, daughter has three daughters and he came out to do this for them ’cause he had retired in the medical and it came out and then right after it came out, we started doing custom bourbon blends.
Well about how the Irish whiskey started up, you know about Thomas Marr?
Z: I am somewhat familiar with the story.
C: Thomas Marr, he was over in Ireland that when they were fighting the British OK. This is when the this is when the Protestants and Catholics hated each other. Yeah, so somehow he became the Betsy Ross of Ireland. He negotiated a peace, and he created the tricolour flag, the Orange being for the Protestants, the Green being for the Catholics and the White was for the peace to come. And that was his flag. And then for doing all this wonderful- because they used to fight with each other, the Protestants and Catholics killed more of each other then they did the British when they got against them, but they caught him and they decided to have him drawn and quartered. But the young Queen said no, let’s just send it to Tasmania and somehow he came from Tasmania to the United States.
So it was an interesting time, a lot of Irish were coming to the United States. Not only do immigrate and back in in New York, if you got off the boat, women and children: Welcome to America. Men: Welcome to America. And by the way you’re drafted. And they formed an Irish Brigade, but a lot of these guys are coming over on purpose ’cause they wanted to get trained in how to fight so they could then go back to then fight the British. Unfortunately their training took them out to Fredericksburg, Gettysburg and other places. Yes, Omar was at the head of this whole thing and they did this whole bit and they they fought and of course they got their name The Fighting 69th from Robert E. Lee.
OK, so that’s really cool and the Irish are there good drinkers. And they they’re also. There’s a lot of ‘em all over the place, so we’re working with them.
So Thomas Marr, this guy used to drink his Irish whiskey with Vichy Water. So he sends his aid out to find Vichy water, but he couldn’t find any Vichy water, so when he came back-he came back with French Champagne.
And so was born the regimental cocktail. It used to be pour 2 bottles of champagne to one bottle Irish whiskey. And now it’s 3 bottles of dry champagne and that’s it.That’s the the regimental punch. So now whenever there’s a large an event, they have a huge beautiful Silver Punch Bowl from Tiffany, and that’s what they use. That’s the regimental punch we serve a lot down in other areas.
So what happens is the Irish were going to the parade, to protest and they were worried. The Saint Paddy’s Parade predates the Revolutionary War in the United States, but this particular one 170 years ago, they said they’re afraid the marchers will be attacked by the onlookers, so they asked the 69th which was a regiment, state Militia I mean, to protect the parade, and nothing happened. So since then, every year, 6 in the morning the officers get up, they go to Amory, they go to the Commander’s room, and they have an Irish whiskey toast.
They then march the men and women, regardless of race, color, creed, to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, for a mass held for the 69th. Not St. Patrick, but for the 69th that led the Parade. This past year, the parade was called off at the last minute. At the LAST last minute, the state said you guys can march. They took 12 of their officers, then marched with the parade marshals behind them, to St. Patrick’s where the priest came out and gave them the blessing so they would not lose 170 years.
Now going back-this whole story ties together. So now you got Marr, and they did all these great things. Over in Wedgewood each year in Ireland, they have a special tricolour celebration, like Betsy Ross Flag Day. Being that Marr was a part of it, each year some of the officers would go over and they said we should have our own Irish Whiskey because we have our own special everything going on. And the biggest players were like Yeah Yeah sure, and they would give them a case to take back and that’s all that happened. So they happened to run into one of our people who said well we can do that, and they tried to do it and it didn’t work. So they ended up sending me over, and giving me access. So what?
Now my thing is, I’m half Irish. I know you’re thinking “Leskowicz”- My mother was Irish. So I am a lot of research guy, so I did a lot of research here. What people liked about Irish Whiskey, what people don’t like. I know what I like-my favorite thing to drink was always Green Spot. But I’ve drinking Green spot for 20 years, when you had to get it at Mitchell and Sons.
A lot of people say I don’t like Irish cause it has has too much bite. I’m like, well, I worked with Lincoln Henderson, it doesn’t have to have bite. I can probably work that part through. So then I was given the ability to visit different distilleries in Ireland because I wanted to do something that was authentically Irish, but also uniquely American. I finally made it to one that had different types of stills, and different types of finishes.
They would do something that would let me do my own blend. This one is a combination of pot stills, and column stills, a lot of malt. With as they say maize, we say corn.
I was able to use some whiskey that used single char bourbon casks, some of it was double char, I wanted that vanilla in there and some caramel, so that’s where the double car came in. And because it was 4 to 6 (year) overall, I wanted something that was affordable to all the troops, not just to officers.
To give it a little more body to it, not be so astringent, I got something that was actually aged in port pipes. And the finish it off at the end I used a bit of sherry finish.
They thought I was crazy, they said don’t you like to blend like this? I said, no, I want their whiskey they have in the United States tastes nothing, nothing like this.
So we did the blend, and…there’s an eighth day in Ireland. It’s called someday. Someday they’ll get something done. No one dies of stress over there. So the stuff was supposed to be here, and it arrived here in Mid October, which is not the best time of the year to introduce a brand. But we had set up before the brand was even created that a dollar a bottle would go back to the regiment on a monthly basis for the Widow and Children’s fund, and to the historical trust. It’s many men that are New York City cops and fireman, so let’s take care of those that take care of us. And this isn’t just done for the pandemic, this is done in perpetuity.
I’d like to give a huge thank you to Chris Leskowicz for taking the time to go over the history of the Fighting 69th, as well as a look into the blending process. Chris also said he really believes this whiskey make a great fighting Mule. Just replace the vodka with Fighting 69th Irish Whiskey.
I have a review of the whiskey itself which will be posted soon. Please head over to https://fighting69thwhiskey.com/welcome to get information on where you can purchase this bottle all around the state.
