When Glenn Howerton, Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day — the creators and stars of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, now the longest-running live-action sitcom in American history — set out to create their own whiskey label, Four Walls, in 2022, it certainly wasn’t meant to be a joke. It wouldn’t be hard to see why you could jump to that conclusion — these are men who turned a bit on their show about an obscene beach towel into a real-world product — but the trio's passion for the product was made clear with the very first sip.
At launch, there were but two whiskey available within the Four Walls: a 15-year cask strength single barrel Irish whiskey with a lofty MSRP of $1,000 and a run of just 755 bottles, and a less-limited-but-still-limited blend of Irish whiskeys and Pennsylvania straight rye. The results were, quite certainly, delicious — my friends and I found the 15-year expression to be one of the best Irish whiskeys we’d ever taste — but both were limited edition runs, their cost and rarity making them more of collector’s items than beverages meant to be regularly knocked back.
But the brand was never meant to just be a limited-run endeavor.
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Four Walls’s new release is aimed at the mainstream
For the fall of 2023, Howerton, Day and McElhenney are dropping their third whiskey — one meant to be much more attainable than the first two runs. At an MSRP of $35 for a fifth, the new Four Walls Irish American Whiskey slots in alongside many a mid-price whiskey like Jameson or Jack Daniel's Old No. 7. (They’ve nicknamed it “The Better Brown,” after a recurring joke on Always Sunny referring to whiskey as a noun named after its color, sometimes in conjunction with its emotion-repressive effects; i.e. “Stuff it down with some brown.”)
As you might expect from a group of men who created a show that largely takes place in a bar called Paddy’s and who wrote a series of episodes set in the Emerald Isle — or as they called it, the "whiskey beer island of green and fight" — Irish whiskey plays a big role here, blended in this case with a touch of rye whiskey sourced from the U.S.A. It's bottled at an easy drinking 80 proof; the brand describes it as equally well-suited for both drinking straight and for cocktails.
Four Walls Irish American Whiskey: What We Think
Four Walls was kind enough to fire a bottle my way before it officially went on sale, giving me a chance to examine it firsthand. The bottle itself, as with the label's past expressions, is a pleasantly subtle piece of work, with gold trim setting off the green logo. In all fairness, it looks better in person than in photographs, as the font of the logo plays around with the lens in less-than-ideal light.
On the nose, it's pleasantly sweet, with hints of honey and a dash of candied fruit aroma floating around. The liquid itself is light, leaving the gentlest of legs on the glass. Take that sip, and on the palette, you'll find the Irish American Whiskey gentle, both in flavor and in strength; remember, at 40 percent alcohol, this is not a whiskey meant to batter you over the head. Again, there's a bit of honey here, as well as a gentle kiss of cherry. Then on the finish, there's a pepper turn as the rye whiskey makes itself known and the last of the liquid evaporates off your tongue and gums.
All told, it's a solid, tasty whiskey at a good price point — one I'd seek out over quite a few of the browns crowding up my liquor cabinet. I'd be inclined, personally speaking, to use it as a base for a highball or try it in place of traditional Irish whiskey in a cocktail. In all honesty, I could well see the slight peppery edge of the rye making it a great match with certain types of beans and for a tasty Irish coffee.
