Heaven Hill heads to Limerick for a uniquely Irish spin on its golf-celebrating bourbon.
“After it’s humble beginning at the Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts in 1927, we couldn’t think of a more appropriate setting for the Ryder Cup’s 100th Anniversary staging next year than in Ireland,” Guy Kinnings says to a room full of golf impresarios. The European Tour Group’s newly minted Chief Executive Officer is welcoming us all to a ceremonial dinner at the spectacular Adare Manor—quite simply one of the finest courses anywhere on the planet—where the biennial Ryder Cup tournament will take place next year.
”I say that because golf is in Ireland’s DNA,” Kinnings continues in his proper Queen’s English lilt. “Ireland people know the game, they cherish the game, they respect the game, and I know they’ll embrace the Ryder Cup like never before.”
One of golf’s most celebrated tournaments, the Ryder Cup was founded by English seed merchant Samuel Ryder to stimulate relations between his homeland and America. So he donated a handsome gold trophy, invited players from both sides of the Atlantic to battle one another every other year, and launched the official competition outside of Boston almost a century ago. Initially it was the U.S. vs only the UK, but in 1973 they invited players from Ireland to help balance the competitive scale, and in 1979 expanded to include golfers from across the English Channel to all of continental Europe.
Excitement for the tournament is already palpable in the area, even though the next iteration won’t happen until September of 2027. Still, locals across County Limerick, where the grey limestone Adare Manor rises regally over the Irish landscape, are already abuzz. Smartly the esteemed bourbon makers Elijah Craig are adopting the Ryder Cup as their own, and for the third time are crafting an exquisite limited edition bottle to celebrate the occasion. So we are here in western Ireland for twin goals: first to meet with the two teams’ captains— Team Europe’s Luke Donald and Team USA’s Jim Furyk—and second and to see firsthand what special twist Elijah Craig are applying to their upcoming Ryder Cup 2027 expression.
For every one of their Ryder Cup expressions, Elijah Craig starts with their already excellent base juice—Heaven Hill’s signature 78% corn / 12% malted barley / 10% rye mash bill, aged in new charred American white oak barrels for a full 8 to 12 years—and then finish it in a custom wood that represents where that year’s Ryder Cup takes place. To backspin the bourbon with a sense of terroir, if you will.
For instance for their first Ryder Cup in 2023, to represent the tournament’s presence in Rome, the team used oak from the nearby Lazio wine region. “The idea is that that latitude and longitude is the best toast profile for that wine from that area, so we used the same barrel for Lazio wine production for the finishing of the whiskey,” Max Stefka tells Maxim the following afternoon from a nearby Irish dairy farm. We had ridden a 4×4 up a long muddy road to a hilltop, the horizon impossibly green even under the clouded sky dark with drizzle.
“They essentially made the whiskey barrel the exact same way they would have made a wine barrel, with the same toast,” Heaven Hill Master Distiller Conor O’Driscoll chimes in, oblivious black and white cows mooing behind him. “So the whiskey picks up the same barrel flavors that the Lazio wines would.”
For the 2025 New York edition, they used toasted maple staves to represent New York’s state tree, and toasted applewood staves as a nod to the Big Apple. The combo resulted in the bourbon absorbing “some lovely fruit flavors, and and some maple syrup,” O’Driscoll explains.
“At the end it’s all a bout the whiskey. We have great whiskey, and we’re excited to share it.”
Heaven Hill Master Distiller Conor O’Driscoll
Now for their third iteration here in Ireland, the Master Distiller and his team elevated the second finishing concept to the next level. Fitting, as O’Driscoll is as Irish as his name sounds.
“This is the first outdoor seasoning we’ve done,” O’Driscoll says, standing near numerous palates of barrel staves stacked on the verdant hilltop. So they shipped virgin European Limousin oak staves here to this dairy farm, where they’re resting lazily in the open air, to absorb the Irish climate and nebulous Gaelic aura into its tightly packed grains. Since Limousin oak already offers different sugar content, composition, wood grain, brittleness, etc. as compared to American oak, the second finish will already have a twist. “So that will impact it,” O’Driscoll explains. “And then the fact that it’s been on this hillside in Ireland is going to add another layer to it.” He pauses, stares at the various piles of staves neatly stacked before him in the cool mist. “We have experience with French oak [at Heaven Hill] so we know what to expect, but I am excited to see how the Irish climate is going to impact this wood.”
We wonder aloud if Elijah Craig going big on the Irish seasoning was a silent nod to O’Driscoll’s heritage, or just a happy accident? “A very happy accident, yeah,” he laughs. “I grew up in Dublin, been in the the States for over thirty years, and making whiskey for 20-something of those. So to be part of this project on a very green hill in County Limerick is pretty cool.”
It all feels like a very full circle moment. It’s one thing to stand in front of an ancient aqueduct in Rome to gush about an Italian Ryder Cup edition bourbon—but it’s entirely different level of meaning to do so in one’s birthplace. Scanning around from this high vantage point, the whole scene could not feel more stereotypically Irish if they’d paid someone to dress up like a leprechaun to dance around in the background brogueing, “I want me gold!” Fluorescent green grass flows from our feet down to the valley below, covering every meadow like carpet. Spotted cows chew their cud in every direction. Literally everything here looks like a Kerrygold butter label.
The talented whiskeymaker tells us he hasn’t been to the Emerald Isle for over a decade, making the Ryder Cup 2027 expression a perfect reason to return to his homeland. As we wander through the staves suddenly the sun breaks through the light drizzle and beams down upon us like a production stage direction. Swear to god, like the Irish Whiskey Gods chose that precise moment to shine a spotlight down on O’Driscoll. “I’m a wanderer,” he chuckles, amused at the long journey he’s taken to arrive right here, right now. And he’s not kidding: at the dinner the night before, O’Driscoll told me about a a 12,000 mile motorcycle voyage he took across North America well before he ever started making whiskey. “I joke that they put an Irishman in charge of Kentucky whiskey, so to bring that back here and have this Irish thumbprint on our whiskey is pretty cool.”
It’s important to note Heaven Hill is employing their Elijah Craig brand as the tip of the spear to penetrate the difficult European market, which has always favored blended scotch and single malts to American whiskey. But all that is slowly changing, with bottles of superb bourbon popping up in the best bars across Britain and the Continent. Heaven Hill sees Elijah Craig as its best weapon among all its many brands to pierce that armor of brand recognition, a Trojan Horse of sorts that will open the gates not only to Elijah Craig but a volley of its stable—think labels like Larceny, Rittenhouse, Evan Williams and Old Fitzgerald, the latter’s Decanter expression already highly coveted in whisky-obsessed European circles. It’s clear their partnership with the Ryder Cup should accelerate this mission.
“It’s really hard to fight suppliers who have a head start on us, so we’re coming from behind,” Stefka explains. “But we believe we have the right whiskey, and the right people to make it happen.”
“Absolutely—at the end it’s all about the whiskey,” O’Driscoll concludes. “And we have great whiskey, and we’re excited to share it.”
As a nod to the 100th anniversary of the US versus Europe tournament, the upcoming Elijah Craig Ryder’s Cup Edition 2027 will be bottled at 100 proof, versus their standard 94-proof. Look out for allocations across all 50 states when it releases next August.
Follow Executive Editor Nicolas Stecher’s travel, spirits, automotive and F&B adventures on Instagram at @nickstecher and @boozeoftheday.
