Mo Chara Gin & ALDI Partner for Ireland’s first 5km Gin Run

press release

Mo Chara Gin & ALDI Partner for Ireland’s first 5km Gin Run

World Gin Day on Saturday 14 June 2025, will see Ireland’s first 5km Gin Run organised by Mo Chara Gin in partnership with ALDI Ireland.

Participants will run from the ALDI Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan to the Old Carrick Mill Distillery, conveniently located five kilometres away, where Mo Chara Gin is created and distilled.

The run is to celebrate the delicious new Mo Chara Strawberry Gin, as well as the beautifully redesigned bottles across the Mo Chara range. 

Each participant will receive a 50ml bottle of all three flavours of Mo Chara Gin - Strawberry Gin, Passionfruit & Mango Gin and Pineapple Gin. Cash prizes of €300, €150 and €50 will be awarded to the top three male and female finishers.

Steven Murphy, founder of Old Carrick Mill Distillery, Co Monaghan, commented: “We have worked with the ALDI team for several years, and we continue to be impressed by their support of artisan Irish producers. 

We are excited to host Ireland’s first 5km Gin Run, a fun way to celebrate World Gin Day.

With the support of ALDI, our small batch gins have been able to reach a larger target audience, and we are delighted to see our newest gin featured in 163 ALDI stores nationwide. We can’t wait to hear what consumers have to say once they taste the products.”

The race will cost €25 to enter and is restricted to adults over 18. For the entrance fee, participants will receive a branded race jersey, bespoke Mo Chara medal, ALDI goody bag including three 50ml Mo Chara gin samples, and an official finish time.

Proceeds will be donated to Inver College Carrickmacross, St.Daigh's National School Inniskeen and the local active retirement group (The Ramblers).

Entrance is done online and can be done by using the link HERE.

All Mo Chara Irish Small Batch gins are available in 163 ALDI stores nationwide while stocks last.

Steven has created a selection of wonderful cocktails with the gins, three of which are easy to make at home this summer—the recipes are below.

Passion Fruit & Mango Frozen Daiquiri

• 100ml Mo Chara Passionfruit and Mango Gin
• 1 Large mango
• 200g Ice
• Juice 1/2 a lime
• 25ml sugar syrup

Method:

1. Put all ingredients in an electric blender and mix until they resemble a frozen slushie. 
2. Pour into a coupe glass and garnish with a slice of mango.

Strawberry Basil Spritz

• 100ml Mo Chara Strawberry Gin
• 120ml Strawberry basil purée
• 60ml Lime juice
• 60ml Sugar syrup
• 60ml Elderflower liqueur
• Soda, to top

Method:

1. Blend a punnet of strawberries and half a pack of basil together in a blender, strain through a sieve to create your purée.
2. Pour the gin, purée, lime juice, simple syrup and elderflower liqueur into a shaker with ice.
3. Pour into a wine glass, top with soda. Garnish with a strawberry slice and basil leaf.

Pineapple Cooler

• 35ml Mo Chara Pineapple Gin
• 15ml Elderflower liqueur
• 25ml Fresh lime juice
• 25ml Sugar syrup
• Fresh mint - 5-10 leaves
• Apple juice – to top up glass

Method:

1. Pour the gin, lime juice, sugar syrup and elderflower liqueur into a shaker with ice.
2. Pour into a highball glass and top with apple juice and garnish with fresh mint leaves.

https://www.instagram.com/oldcarrickmilldistillery/ 

Race entry Link: https://in.njuko.com/mo-chara-5k-gin-run-20251747046157399

RACE DETAILS

Race start time: 10am

Arrival Time: 8am

Parking

parking on site at Old Carrick Mill, Derrylavan, Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan, A81YV10

They will be running a bus from the Old Carrick Mill to the start line.

Anyone with a wheelchair we kindly ask you to park at the start point in ALDI Carrickmacross.

Race Entry Pack Pick Up

Monday 9 - Friday 13 June the team will be onsite for participants to pick up their race pack. 9.30am to 4.30pm

Late night pick up on Friday 13 June until 8pm

Participants can also get their pack in the morning at the entry point to ALDI car park (open from 8am).

CorkBillyBeers #30. Craft Session Time With DOT, McGill's, Lough Gill and Tom Crean.

CorkBillyBeers #30

Craft Session with DOT, McGill's, Lough Gill and Tom Crean.

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DOT Brew Spin Off Series Session IPA, 3.2% ABV, 440ml can Aldi

A “tasty dry hop of Centennial & Galaxy” makes its impact in the aromatics in this hazy pale yellow IPA from Dot Brew. It is one of their Spin Off Series which they brew exclusively for Aldi.

Mainly exotic flavours in the mouth as the hops keep it going, yet the body is soft and light and bitterness, while always there, is on the low side. “Perfect all year round drinking” they say and I couldn’t argue with that. It is an easy-drinking East Coast Style, brewed with barley and flaked and malted oats. Suitable for vegans.

Geek Bits

Ingredients: malted barley / pale wheat / flaked & malted oats  /New England style yeast. 

Hops are Centennial (US) and Galaxy (Australia) Suitable for vegans. Exclusive to Aldi.

Very Highly Recommended.

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McGill’s Skellig Monk Irish Blonde 4.5% ABV, 500ml bottle Centra Waterville

Golden or blonde ale is easy to like. Its golden colour and fountains of rapidly rising bubbles is attractive. Easy on the eye. Like this one by McGill, easy on the palate too with a good balance of hops and malt. Bread and biscuit flavours and a subtle malt sweetness make it easy drinking.

Our Skellig Monk Irish Blonde is spot on style, is balanced, light, rounded and smooth, with those bread-like malt flavours and citrusy hops and a subtle malty sweetness. As is usual for the style, the finish is not the longest. An excellent accessible beer to try, especially if you are starting off on your craft trail.

Monks have long been associated with beer making. The beer is named for the monks who lived on Sceilig Mhichíl, the larger of the two Skellig Islands, 12 kilometres off the Iveragh Peninsula in Kerry. Monks founded a monastery on the island at some point between the 6th and 8th century and it remained continuously occupied until it was abandoned in the late 12th century.

Joe McGill suggests matching his blonde with lighter food: such as chicken, salads, salmon, bratwurst, white fish and Monterey Jack Cheese. Sweet tooth? No bother. Joe says try it with Light apricot or mandarin cake, lemon custard tart.

While the Skellig monks may have had beer, I don’t think they enjoyed that kind of diet!

Serving temperature should be in the 4.5–7 ° degrees range. 

Highly Recommended

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Lough Gill Cutback New England IPA, 4.5%, 440ml can Bradleys

“Our Cutback Session IPA was developed as the perfect post-surf, summer-BBQ ale with a lightly tropical flavour to put you in mind of warm weather and…if you can’t visit Sligo, let us bring Sligo to you!” That was how Lough Gill introduced their Cutback New England IPA.

It comes in a light, hazy orange/yellow colour with soft foamy head.  With the hops involved, you are expecting tropical and citrus. And they are there but so too is a reasonably stern bitterness that somewhat tames the flavour or perhaps I should say, balances them. For this is a very drinkable NEIPA from the Sligo brewery and, with an ABV of 4.5%, a very sessional one as well.

The hops used are Comet, Azacca and El Dorado, all American as you might expect.

There is rarely any shortage of ideas for brews at Lough Gill. They explain: We are very fortunate to have such a diverse and dynamic team of dedicated staff at our brewery. It is this diversity that gives us a competitive edge. Each morning in Cleveragh, we're greeted with hello's in various languages. Aside from our fellow Sligonians, we have an Italian head brewer, an Argentinian brewer, and our head of sales is French.”

“When drawing up concepts for new beers, we develop different ideas from across the table. The styles are very different in each country. Argentina prefers well-made traditional old school beers. France is following more after the US scene with modern styles, and Italians have been influenced by Belgian styles and enjoy strong beers. It makes for a good mix. We want to brew the best hand-crafted beers using the finest ingredients and, where possible, to add some local indigenous ingredients to the brews.”

Highly Recommended.

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Tom Crean Scurvy Dog IPA 4.2%, 440 can Carry Out Killarney

Lovely gold colour, soft white head, plenty of bubbles rising. That’s what you see when you pour this low ABV IPA from Tom Crean. 

Scurvy is a disease caused by a significant lack of vitamin C in your diet. Not a name I’d be inclined to give a beer though I understand the mariner connection in that scurvy was a curse for sailors on long voyages in times long past, in Tom Crean’s time I’d say.

The white head has more or less vanished having typed up that first paragraph. Sipping the beer itself now which has citrus aromas,  is crisp and light and very refreshing indeed. 

Highly Recommended and a good fit for the Session category.

If you prefer a hoppier beer, then the Whiplash Rollover (3.8% ABV) is well worth checking out.

CorkBillyBeers #25. Craft Stout and Porter with Kinnegar, Tom Crean, West Kerry and Dot Brew

CorkBillyBeers #25

Craft Stout and Porter with Kinnegar, Tom Crean, West Kerry and Dot Brew

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Kinnegar Yannaroddy Porter 4.8%, 440ml can Bradleys Cork

Black, more like a Ford Model T than a ripe blackberry on the briar, is the colour here with a tan head that doesn’t hang about. Smells roasty. And the palate is full of those traditional dark roasted malt flavours and, eventually, there is a touch, a sweet one, of the coconut, which is actually listed in the ingredients. 

But it all returns to the more traditional porter characteristics as the long and very satisfactory finish progresses. For me, it is velvety smooth with good acidity on the way to a lip-smacking finish. That smoothness is quite amazing and no nitro was harmed while it was achieved.

Very Highly Recommended 

By the way, the Yannaroddy (based on European hops) is the 2019 Brussels Beer Challenge gold medal winner “whose surprisingly light profile delivers rich and complex flavours”.

Where did they get the name? Sounds Australian to me. But no, they found it in their own little corner of Donegal where they get all the names for their beers. A stone’s throw from the brewery is a field with the intriguing name Yannaroddy.

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Tom Crean Six Magpies Stout, 4.5% ABV, 440ml can, Carry Out Killarney

Magpie black is the colour of our Six Magpies Stout from Tom Crean, Kenmare’s independent brewery, and it has a soft tan head. Gentle coffee notes from the aromas. And that coffee streak runs through the palate with the hops also doing their subtle bit.  Excellent mouthfeel and a fine dry finish as well. 

I’m inclined to think this is the best of the Crean beers, at least is the one that has made the best impression on me. Of course, I’m not the only one, as it won gold in its category at the Blas na h-Éireann awards in 2002.

The brewery: A combination of 6 grain types, but that’s not where the name comes from! A traditional Irish stout, triple hopped and reminiscent of stouts before the addition of nitrogen. Subtle hop presence, perfect mouthfeel and classic combination of grains.

So where did the name come from? Brewer Bill was trying to settle on a name when he heard an almighty racket overhead. Looking up to the trees, he saw a bunch of magpies, six in all. (Brewers are sticklers for detail). He was aware of the old saying about the noisy bird: One for sorrow, Two for joy, Three for a girl, Four for a boy, Five for silver, Six for gold, Seven for a secret never to be told.

Suitably inspired, the brewer christened the beer Six Magpies. And, of course, it went on and won gold!

Very Highly Recommended. The beer, that is, not counting magpies!

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West Kerry Carraig Dubh Porter, 6.0% ABV, 500ml bottle, Carry Out Killarney

This is the brewery’s take: A rich luxurious porter brewed with bags of chocolate malt. This bold heavy porter is laden with coffee and chocolate tones. 

Enjoyed this previously over the Christmas and see little reason to change my notes. Black as you’d expect and it comes with a quickly vanishing head. Aromas coming from the malt are coffee and caramel. The roasted flavours are on the bold side, and really wake up those taste buds. Lots of chocolate malt here but there is also a balance and it never gets too sweet, just spot on. The aromas and flavours continue to make this a superb experience right through to the finalé. They also do a barrel aged version - must sometime try that (as Yoda might put it)!

Their original beer was Cúl Dorcha, a red ale (great with oysters, I’m told); then came Carraig Dhubh a porter “because we like the sound of the word as opposed to stout!” Hard for us amateurs to describe the difference between stout and porter if the professionals chose to call this one porter on the basis of how it sounds!

But agree we can (again Yoda) that this is quite a beer. Smooth, seductive, chocolate-y and there is no letting go as the lingering finish is along the same lines. One to sip and savour, arís is arís. Superb beers like this are making me think I may soon be drinking exclusively on the dark side.

It is bottle conditioned and made from malted barley, hops, yeast and spring water “from our own spring”. Traditional, yes. A bottle (or two) would go down well at the threshings I remember - but not too many threshings on farms anymore. 

Very Highly Recommended

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Dot Brew Spin off Series Dark Side Stout, 4.2%, 440ml can Aldi only

Colour is black, no surprise and the soft tan head reduces rather quickly. There’s a moderate chocolate and vanilla aroma, (the head has vanished by now as I type that). The liquid in the mouth is roasty and chocolate smooth, and a hint of vanilla towards the end which is dry and refreshing. All this at an Aldi price. How bad!

 

Their Instagram says its an approachable stout with a medium body. “Built with Irish pale barley / caraffa special II / pale wheat / flaked oats / carapils / chocolate malt, fermented with a not so traditional low rider yeast, Willamette hops to the hot side with an addition of natural vanilla post fermentation.” 

Yes, vanilla is listed in the ingredients.

Highly Recommended.