Frequently Asked Questions

Your monthly membership fee entitles you to the following:

Invite to Monthly “Meet-the-Makers” Private Event

Full Access to The Stillhouse – with new monthly videos, interviews, educational features  and articles

Full Access to Quarterly Tasting Events with Irish Whiskey Makers & Brand Owners*

Opportunity to purchase each Exclusive Club Bottling (multiple per year)*

Opportunity to participate in each Group Cask Program 

Access to in-person meetups (when held)

Partner Discounts & Exclusive Club Offers 

 

*  You have the option (but are not obligated) to purchase exclusive Club Bottlings, shares in Club Cask Programs or Whiskey Tasting Packs for our Quarterly Tasting Events. These will incur a separate and fully transparent charge. 

 

The following items are not included in your membership fee and are an optional extra purchase should you decide to buy:

• Exclusive Club Whiskey Bottlings
• Shares in our Club Cask Programs
• Shipping charges for our Whiskey Tasting Packs for our Quarterly Tasting Events (see separate FAQ for more info on this one)

Building a club takes time and money. There are web development and hosting costs, software service costs, we pay ALL our writers and contributors (no freebies expected here!) and we will be devoting a significant amount of time to producing great video content and bringing you the best events, experiences and whiskeys. If we didn't charge a modest membership fee we wouldn't be able to offer any of this. I know it can feel like there are more and more things to pay for each month but the good news is that we have 100s of hours of free content that you can access without being a member anytime - podcasts, Lock-in livestreams and more. We will also continue to be very active in growing our Irish Whiskey Fans of America Facebook Group which will always be free. And we'll have at least one Lock-in a month so you can get your fix of music, craic and whiskey. 

Each Quarterly Tasting Event will have an allocated number of Tasting Packs (3 x 50ml bottles of Irish whiskey). This number will vary depending on the whiskey and distillery but we will endeavor to have as many packs available as are requested. 

These packs will be brought you at cost price meaning they are not marked up or priced for profit. The costs will depend on the variable freight and shipping costs. Currently FedEx charges $20 minimum for legally compliant shipment of even a single miniature bottle of whiskey within the United States. Each of our  Tasting Packs so far have cost in the region of $20-$30 landed with you. 

No, not at all. Perhaps you already have these bottles on hand or you'd like to sit in and learn without the whiskeys. As a member you can join all Tasting Events, with or without the whiskeys. 

We work with a licensed alcohol retailer in Ireland who currently ships globally including all states in the United States. 

We'd love to have you as a member of the Club, no matter where you live. Our virtual events are typically hosted at 7pm Eastern United States time (midnight Irish time) but if that's too late, we always have a recording available the next day to watch anytime. 

We'll do our best to help get you your item within our legal capabilities. Failing that we will give you a full refund on any item purchased that cannot be delivered to you. 

We won't know the exact price until we finalize shipping and freight costs, angels share, etc for each release. We expect most bottlings to be under $100 though we may also have much lower and much higher options for those who wish to participate. Most important to us is that we bring you unique, extraordinary whiskeys as cost-effectively as possible. 

In an effort to bring down the cost of Cask Program participation, the Club will purchase entire whiskey casks from distilleries and divide up the cask into a number of shares. The number of shares will vary depending on the size of the cask. Each share will be redeemable (post-maturation) for one bottle of the mature cask. In some cases the price paid for a share will include all charges and fees up to the point of handing you your bottle(s). In other cases, there may be separate shipping/bottling charges. This will ALWAYS be made extremely clear PRIOR to the sale of Cask shares. We will be fully transparent and share all available information at all times. 

1 share of one Cask Program might cost you $40 while another might cost you $80. Again, we'll make all this clear prior to the opening of each Cask Program.  

We know that not everything is a fit for everyone so if you join and you decide it's not for you, simply shoot us an email and we'll cancel your membership and return the monthly fee you paid. We'd never expect you to pay for something you weren't happy with. 

We launched our first Stories & Sips whiskey, The Story, in 2020 in collaboration with Louise McGuane, founder of J.J. Corry. This was released in the middle of the pandemic as a community project to lift spirits and connect us all across the miles at a time when we needed as bit of community and togetherness. Everyone who was part of the project contributed their time, materials and resources to this project at cost or at a loss. No profits were sought, made or expected. It was a wonderful project that we all enjoyed that would have been a commercial failure at the price point we brought it to market at if everyone involved was paid what they deserved. 

As you will appreciate and understand, we would be unable to operate a Club at a loss, no matter how much we love this community and Irish whsikey!

We will produce at least one high quality video a month (Distillery visit/Guide to Whiskey Bars etc) together with multiple articles and features that will all live in the members-only area of the Stories & Sips website known as The Stillhouse. 

It certainly will not be going away! We expect it will only get busier and more fun as more and more members take to the group to chat about tastings, videos, content etc. We will invest as much time in the Facebook community as we have ever done. And maybe even more!

Great, we love questions. Send them to us on our contact page and we'll get you a speedy answer. If it's a good enough question we might even add it to our list of FAQs here! Imagine the the thrill...