A Spirited Future
August 17th 2020
Nick Curtis-Davis, Head of Brand Development, Bord Bia – The Irish Food Board
There has never been a more exciting time for Irish spirits.
From its well documented, near extinction in the 1970’s the Irish spirits industry is once again in rude health. The story is largely that of whiskey but the current renaissance is defined by more than just the volume and value recovery led by the big whiskey brands. It is also characterised by the rich breadth and variety of approaches, stories and flavours a new breed of bonders and distillers is bringing to the category.
Here’s a snapshot of just three of the latest entrants onto the Irish Spirits stage. Together their stories illustrate just a fraction of the diversity and excitement that suffuses this vibrant category today.
W.D O’Connell Whiskey Merchants
When a former Hong Kong boat-owning, ex-pilot makes Irish Whiskey, he’s probably going to do it differently. Daithí O’Connell is a whiskey merchant, not a distiller. He doesn’t have a distillery and he has no immediate plans to build one. In the mould of independent Scotch Whisky bottlers Cadenhead or Gordon & McPhail he’s setting out to create small batch fine whiskies with spirits hand selected from various distilleries and finished in a variety of casks.
Daithí launched his business at Dublin’s Whiskey Live in late 2019 with two releases, a 17-year-old Single Malt distilled in Cooley finished in Pedro Ximénez sherry casks, and ‘Bill Phil’ Batch 01 - Ireland’s first triple-distilled, peated, single malt whiskey in over half a century.
Rebel City Distillery
Opened in June this year Rebel City Distillery is the first new distillery in Cork city for almost fifty years. It is a boutique distillery located beneath the iconic sawtooth roofs of the old Henry Ford & Son Ltd factory buildings in the city’s historic Docklands.
The dockland location offers inspiration aplenty to co-founders Robert and Bhagya Barrett with its echoes of a bygone era when the world was connected by sea and the exotic met the familiar every day on the quaysides. Rebel City Distillery plans to source their ingredients from across the globe to celebrate and reflect the unexpected connections and cultural vibrancy that have always been a hallmark of the world’s great port cities.
The distillery’s first release brings this ambition to life. Maharani is a gin zested with pomelo fruit, and uniquely spiced with cassia and nutmeg-mace, all sourced from a women’s organic farming co-operative in Bhagya’s home state of Kerala, India.
Wayward Irish Spirits
It’s not unusual to hear that a particular line of work runs in the family. It’s less common however to discover that this line stretches back for almost six hundred years. Maurice O’Connell’s family have been in the drinks business since as far back as 1450, based first in Ballycarbery Castle, and later at Derrynane, Co. Kerry, importing wines and brandies from Spain and Portugal.
Now located at Lakeview Estate on the shores of Lough Leane, Maurice, with his wife and business partner Francesca, is intent on creating Ireland's most beautifully situated single estate, grain to glass distillery for Wayward Irish Spirits. The journey has already begun with the foundations now laid for the first of the Lakeview Estate range of Whiskeys. The 2018 crop of Barley grown in the Estate's ‘Hilly Field’ has been malted and then triple distilled off-site into Pot Still spirit that will return to the Estate for maturation in its re-purposed 300 year old stone farm building – the ‘House of Contentment’. A distillery is planned for 2024.
In the meantime Maurice plans to focus on Bonding, offering a collection of mature Whiskeys sourced from other distilleries and finished on the Estate in meticulously selected barrels. These whiskeys will be named the Liberator Irish Whiskey Series in honour of his forebear Daniel O’Connell. The inaugural release from this range, launched in February this year, was The Liberator Irish Malt Whiskey finished in Tawny Port casks.