Walk up to this shelf and your hand goes to the Jameson. It probably should not. The quieter bottle beside it is the smarter everyday buy.
One distillery in Cork makes most of the Irish whiskey anyone can name, and this week it fills the shelf six times: two plain-and-dressed-up Jamesons, a Powers, a Redbreast, and a serial-numbered trophy at the top. The middle price lands around $74. Most of these bottles do sit over the whiskeys the model rates nearest them in flavour, which for famous Irish blends is nothing to raise an eyebrow at. Powers Gold Label is the one that sits over its crowd by the least and hands you a little extra for the trouble, which is exactly why it deserves more attention than it gets.
Powers Gold is $70, about 27% over a band near $55 — the smallest real gap on the shelf, and a plain 700mL bottle rather than an oversized one. There is more grip to it than the house Jameson style: a baking-spice note of cinnamon and nutmeg, honey, orchard pear, a raisined sultana sweetness. It pours like an everyday Irish with something to prove, and of the bottles the model can place, it reads closest to fair. On a shelf this crowded with one green label, Powers rewards the drinker who looks a tag to the left.
1/Jameson Black Barrel is an Irish blend. Monkey Shoulder is a Scottish blended malt. Different island, different make-up. The profile model seats them sixth-closest in the whole set anyway.
2/And this Thursday they're low in the same breath. Jameson $70, Monkey Shoulder $58 at Dan Murphy's, both plain shelf tickets, neither a members-only price. Each is parked at the bottom of its own recent range.
3/Worth a pinch of salt: the value model is cooler on the match, thirteenth rather than sixth. So take them as two easy everyday blends that line up on flavour arithmetic, not as the same dram in two bottles.
4/Both lean corn-and-cask with a little sherry edge to them. At $70 for the Irish or $58 for the Scotch, which is filling the glass this week? Both Dan Murphy's. If your local shelf reads different, drop the ticket below.
The plain Jameson looks like the dearest everyday pour on this shelf. It is not. It is just in a bigger bottle.
One distillery in County Cork makes most of the Irish whiskey you can name. Jameson comes from there. So does Redbreast, so does Powers, so does the trophy bottle with the serial number on the back. Six of those bottles sit on the shelf this week, and the shelf median lands at $74. That one number already tells you something before we look at a single label: the famous names are not sitting where the quiet ones sit.
One distillery in County Cork makes nearly everything on this shelf, and it will sell you a $70 bottle and a $434 one on the same afternoon. The gap between them is mostly about how much you want the name.
| bottle | region | latest ticket | read | window price | CE 360° mean | premium | shelf rank | per std drink | drink rank | content |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jameson Black Barrel Blended Irish Whiskey | Midleton | $69.85 | observed | $69.85 | $53.97 | 22.7% | #2 of 6 | $3.16 | #4 of 6 | 1 |
| Jameson Blended Irish Whiskey | Midleton | $79.95 | observed | $53.87 | $46.90 | 12.9% | #1 of 6 | $2.53 | #1 of 6 | 0 |
| Jameson Caskmates Stout Edition Irish Whiskey | Midleton | $67.99 | observed | $72.99 | $54.44 | 25.4% | #4 of 6 | $2.81 | #2 of 6 | 0 |
| Midleton Very Rare Irish Whiskey | Midleton | $433.99 | observed | $433.99 | $271.31 | 37.5% | #6 of 6 | $19.64 | #6 of 6 | 0 |
| Powers Gold Label Irish Whiskey | Midleton | $69.99 | observed | $69.99 | $53.84 | 23.1% | #3 of 6 | $2.93 | #3 of 6 | 0 |
| Redbreast 12 Year Old Irish Whiskey | Midleton | $123.99 | observed | $123.99 | $79.51 | 35.9% | #5 of 6 | $5.61 | #5 of 6 | 0 |