In accordance with the Irish Poteen/Irish Poitín technical file, it can be made only from cereals, grain, whey, sugar beet, molasses and potatoes.

[11] In more recent times, some distillers deviated from using malted barley as a base of the mash bill due to the cost and availability instead switching to using treacle, corn and potatoes.

The Irish critic Sinéad Sturgeon has demonstrated how the illegality of the substance became a crucial theme running through the writings of Maria Edgeworth and William Carleton.

[16] Many characters in the work of contemporary Irish playwright Martin McDonagh consume or refer to poitín, most notably the brothers in The Lonesome West.

In Frank McCourt's book 'Tis, he recalls his mother Angela telling him that when his brother Malachy visited her in Limerick, he obtained poitín in the countryside and drank it with her.

Some traditional Irish folk songs, such as The Hills of Connemara and The Rare Old Mountain Dew, deal with the subject of poitín.

The folk song "Tinkers' Potcheen" by Seamus Moore recounts the way in which the practice of producing poitín is passed down through families.

The persecution of the poitín-maker by the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1880s Cavan is treated in The Hackler from Grouse Hall and its reply The Sergent's Lamentation.