Powers John’s Lane whiskey review

Powers is one of the great historic names in Irish whiskey. Established in 1791, it was as synonymous with the spirit in its day as Jameson is now. The distillery once covered six acres of central Dublin and was producing 900,000 gallons of spirit a year by the 1880s. Powers pioneered bottling its own whiskey at a time when it was standard to sell direct to merchants, who bottled it themselves. The 1966 merger that formed Irish Distillers saw Powers leave Dublin for County Cork and its current home at Midleton Distillery.

Its flagship whiskey, Gold Label, is a blend of pot still and grain whiskeys, while John’s Lane is a twelve-year-old single pot still whiskey. Just by its name – the address of Powers's old Dublin distillery – John’s Lane evokes heritage, and the pure pot still release echoes the whiskies the brand originally made its name on.

It pours a pleasing rich, coppery gold in the glass. On the nose, it’s classic pot still signifiers: smooth honeyed malt, rich apple and banana, vanilla, some cinnamon and a little tobacco and fruit cake. On the palate it builds from the nose, with more dried fruit, intense honeyed sweetness, hints of coffee and a full, oily mouthfeel. The finish continues a while, with the spice and sweetness letting in more coffee, then a little wood tannin at the end.