You might be asking yourself, “o.k.- what is it?” Well, the word poteen is a bit like the word “moonshine” in America. It refers to a small batch, clear spirit that is unaged and carries connotations of the illicit. Indeed, for some time, the Irish Revenue Commissioners, who oversee these matters, forbade companies to call their product poteen because, as one commissioner put it in correspondence with Knockeen Hills,”strong association in the public mind of the term ‘poteen’ with illicitly distilled spirits and the confusion that the use of such terms would give rise to as the duty status of such spirits.”