Unique whiskey blend tells a Dunmore Brazilian love story
Police Officer in Boston teams with Achill Distillery
THE love story of a Dunmore man and his Brazilian wife has been distilled into a whiskey bottle.
Frank Forde, from Dunmore and living on the outskirts of Boston in the US, has decided to blend the best of the Irish and Brazilian cultures and has started a new venture called Saudade & Sláinte Whiskey with two friends from Galway, Gareth Carrick and Mark Kavanagh.
Sláinte is an Irish phrase often toasted to good health and happiness, while saudade is a Portuguese word that describes a deep sense of longing and connection to a person or place.
Frank is married to Joecy. He and his wife have two children. The son of Michael and Karen Forde, Frank is the second oldest of eight boys and has dual Irish and American citizenship through his mother.
“I met my lovely wife in 2021. It was my first drop into the Brazilian culture and life. It’s very similar to Irish culture. Music, drink and sport are very much part of their culture too,” said Frank.
“Some guys buy flowers for their wives or girlfriends. I created a whiskey. It’s our love story. It’s about bringing the two cultures together.”
Frank helps Joecy out with the daycare service she runs during the day before working evening shifts in a police department in the Greater Boston area.
Frank emigrated to Boston in 2013 and joined the police force six years later. The Sunday World carried a story in August on his efforts to stop a group of Irish criminals – called the Travelling Conmen Fraud Group by US authorities – who operate a home repair scam looking to con people out of money.
Some might look at Frank’s life and think he has a lot on his plate, but Saudade & Sláinte Whiskey is a project that he and his friends are very much invested in.
“I used to work with Gareth and Mark doing club promotion during my college days in Galway. I reached out to them and told them that I was thinking about starting up a whiskey. They said, ‘all right’ and we started with the idea,” explained Frank, a third-generation police officer.
“Gareth is in construction. Mark sells suits. We’ve all drastically different jobs. I talk to them on a daily basis about the business.”
One of the best men at Frank’s wedding was Sean McKay from Ballyhaunis. The McKay family operate Achill Island Distillery, where they make their Irish-American Whiskey.
It is in Achill Island Distillery where the first batches of Saudade & Sláinte Whiskey are ageing.
“I’ve watched Sean grow his business and the way he works, doing the hard sales coming over here. I think we can do something like that,” said Frank.
“The whiskey is being aged in Achill. It is currently in American oak barrels in Achill. It’s a single malt, triple distilled whiskey.
“It has to be aged for at least three years before it’s considered an Irish whiskey. Our whiskey will be a five-year single whiskey.
“The plan is to have it on sale in Brazil in 2027 and in Ireland in 2028.”
A distillery in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais is interested in partnering with Frank, Gareth and Mark to have exclusive rights to selling and distributing their whiskey in the country. Frank and Joecy are set to fly to the distillery next month.
A key element to the production of the whiskey is how it will be finished.
“We’ll be adding the five-year single malt whiskey to cachaca barrels. We need to get the cachaca barrels from Brazil to Ireland. It’s important to pick the right casks,” said Frank.
“The cachaca barrels are made using a special type of wood called amburana. It’s very unique to Brazil. When you put the whiskey into them, it almost gives it a sweet flavour.
“The whiskey will be left in the barrels for 90 to 100 days and then it will be finished. The spirit will quickly get a unique flavour and taste from the absorbent of the cask. It’s almost like a cinnamon bun flavour from looking at the reviews.
“We’re in the process now of getting amburana wood chippings sent from Brazil, so in seven to eight weeks we will have a sense of what it tastes like from adding the chippings to the whiskey in Achill.”
The story of Saudade & Sláinte Whiskey will be documented through the ‘Beyond the Barrel’ mini-series.
Frank has contacted several people asking them to do short videos on different concepts relating to Ireland and Brazil, with possible contributions from a well-known Irish actor as well as an up and coming Brazilian UFC mixed martial artist.
“The first video will be on what is cachaca. We’re hoping it will be out soon. It is being done by a man named Alex, who is a lecturer in a Sao Paolo school of bartending. I reached out to him on Instagram to ask if he could do a two or three-minute video,” said Frank, who attended Garrafrauns NS.
“It was Alex who introduced me to the distillery in Minas Gerais. The connections are slowly starting to come.
We had the Irish connections and we had the whiskey. We hadn’t the connections in Brazil. It took a lot of emails to build them up, but we’re slowly getting more contacts. Each person gives us new information.
“We reached out to the Vancouver Film School about doing us a short commercial and they’re doing that.
“We’re reaching out to a lot of people.
Production companies are interested in doing a documentary on the creation of the whiskey that would be aired on Brazilian television. It will be the first of its kind.
“We’re different. We’re bringing people along for the journey to see our whiskey being created. They’ll be able to watch us go to Brazil and pick out the barrels through the videos on our social media pages.
“They might learn something niche about Ireland and Brazil. It’s an educational series about bringing cultures together.”
A graduate in hotel and catering management from GMIT (now ATU), Frank always wanted to become a policeman. His grandfather and his uncle both served as police officers in the US.
Frank is the only one of the eight brothers to be currently lived abroad and gets to return to see his family and friends in Dunmore each year.
“I’m busy with everything I’m doing but I’m very happy,” said Frank.
“I love my job. My dream was to be a police officer. I’ve done that. You’re always looking to add stuff to your resume and the whiskey business is a new thing.
“It’s a good way to focus on something different especially with the job I have, where you’re seeing bad people and dealing with bad things.
“I’m a very proud Dunmore man. I marched in the St. Patrick’s Day parade last year in Galway with my colleagues and that was fantastic. My Irish roots are very important to me.
“I’ve established my life over here, but I go home to Dunmore at least once or twice a year. That will probably be more when the business gets busier.”
Saudade & Sláinte Whiskey may not be a full-time job for Frank and his partners, but it is one they are looking to make a success of.
“We don’t have huge backing. We’re three regular guys with regular jobs.
It’s a side project but we’ve big ambitions for it,” said Frank about a whiskey that tells the love story of he and his wife Joecy.