Teeling Whiskey
Distillery Internship
Design Intern & Apprentice to Master Distiller
Overview
I moved to Dublin, Ireland and worked as full-time apprentice to the Teeling Whiskey Distillery Master Blender. I spent my time learning about the production process of creating large-scale, high quality Irish Whiskey and documenting the process to search for possible design improvements that could be made. I was trained in both whiskey tasting and whiskey blending processes and was able to interact and work with consumers as an in-house bartender during my time to conduct user research about preferred whiskey styles and flavor profiles.
My Role
I was tasked with creating a comprehensive paper describing the procedures that occurred within the Teeling Distillery, as well as developing new ideas to market whiskey distillery education and improve The Teeling Irish Whiskey production process.
I found this internship to be very interesting because I was specifically designing products for consumers, which was something I had never done before, but there was a twist: Because whiskey has to age for a certain amount of time to be considered marketable (two years minimum by law), the design ideas that I was creating were not going to be seen by a consumer until many years in the future.
These design ideas are currently in process of being completed, but due to my NDA and the amount of time it takes whiskey to be put on the market, it will be a while until I can specifically discuss what design ideas I was able to suggest.
I found that I was able to compile the data about the functionality of the distillery very quickly, but because the distillery is also a business, I also collected data on the marketing side of the company. It was interesting to see how the marketing and production sides of the Teeling Company differed, even through they were both completely centered around the creation of Teeling Whiskey.
My complete design process (excluding the NDA material) is linked below.
Reflections
My time in Dublin was a tremendous growth experience. Not only did I learn the ins and outs of the Irish Whiskey Market, but I also gained many design skills that will be beneficial as I continue creating ideas for the world. I was able to observe an entire production and distribution process of a product from how it is created and designed to how it is sold to consumers. It was incredibly rewarding to be part of the Teeling family!
