Irish whiskey is often cited as being the best for those just getting into the whiskey world, and it makes sense. Ireland has been distilling whiskey for a long, long time, and distillers there have had centuries of knowledge and experience to build on. Although there are variations within Irish whiskey, they all have a reputation as being very approachable, very drinkable, and very complex. That’s true whether you’re talking about some of the biggest names in the industry or some of the small upstarts, but how did we get here in the first place?
That is a very long story, spanning centuries of history. We’re going to take a look at some of the most important points in the history of Irish whiskey, but just to be clear, this comes with a massive disclaimer: There is no way to cover the entirety of it without writing several books, a handful of screenplays, and then a 10-part television series.
In other words, there’s a lot to unpack. We’re going to hit the high points (that are, in fact, some pretty low points in history), and explain how we got to where we are today, why there aren’t more big distillers like Jameson and Midleton, and what’s next. Along the way, we’re also going to meet a few people that you should definitely raise a glass to the next time you crack open a bottle, because without them, it’s entirely possible there would be no Irish whiskey industry at all.
The first mention of Irish whiskey goes back to 1405
Humankind has been distilling for so long that the origins of the art have been lost to that murky part of history that no one really remembers. It’s thought to date back to 2300 B.C., and a few different people are given credit for inventing alembic stills around the 3rd or 4th century. When we get to Ireland, things are still hazy.
Officially — and by that, we mean according to the European Union’s official history — whiskey distillation in Ireland dates back to the monks of the 6th century. As far as a written reference to whiskey, that doesn’t come until 1405 … sort of.
In the 17th century, an Irish antiquarian translated the Annals of Clonmacnoise, a massive compilation of short notes that highlighted some of the major events that took place in Ireland between the 5th and the 17th centuries. Among those events were the building of castles, skirmishes among the different Irish clans, and the deaths of chieftains and leaders. It was one of those chieftains — a man named Richard (or Risdard) maGranell, who was recorded as dying during the Christmas season in 1405 “by takeing (sic) a surfeit of aqua vitae, to him aqua mortis.” Aqua vitae means “water of life,” and in Gaelic, that’s uisce (or uisge) beatha, which gave us the word for whiskey. On a side note, you can still visit the Clonmacnoise Monastic Site in County Offaly.
England cracked down on Irish distilling in 1556
For better or worse — usually for the worse, from the Irish point of view — the histories of Ireland and England have been entwined for centuries. (And don’t worry, we promise this isn’t going to turn into a boring history lesson.) Pre-English occupation, Ireland had governed itself in what was a pretty fascinating way … but not what we’re here to talk about. Things started to change in 1494, when Poyning’s Law established two precedents: All English laws now applied to Ireland, and any Irish laws needed to be approved by England before they were passed.
For centuries, Ireland had been distilling whiskey on a small scale, one that was done in many homes. Poyning’s Law laid the groundwork for it to become an industry regulated by the English, and that’s what happened in 1556. That’s when it became illegal for anyone — anyone who wasn’t a “gentleman,” at least — to make whiskey without a license. The number of distilleries in Ireland dropped off drastically, and in a way, it was the beginning of an end to an industry that had thrived for centuries.
The oldest whiskey distilleries in Ireland were founded
In the midst of everything that was going on in the Ireland vs. England front, we’d like to take a minute to give a shout-out to a couple of the big players. Throughout the end of the 16th century, County Antrim’s rich countryside, barley fields, and proliferation of grain mills made it a hotbed for Irish distillers who had decided to give England the middle finger and keep distilling anyway. Some of those distillers ultimately ended up going legit, and a 1608 license from King James I established the still-popular Bushmills.
That gives Bushmills claim to be the oldest distillery in the world, but there’s a footnote here. The Bushmills distillery wasn’t registered until 1784, and in the time between the license and the distillery registration, another player entered the game.
Kilbeggan was granted a license in 1757, and claimed to be the country’s oldest, continuously-licensed distillery. Along the way, there were some close calls: A boiler explosion nearly put an end to things in 1866. In 1878, a massive fire nearly spelled ruin — and it likely would have, if locals hadn’t stepped in, saved thousands of casks, and by doing so, ensured the distillery’s survival. It was the community, too, that saved the license: When the distillery closed in 1958, locals kept paying the licensing fee until it reopened four decades later.
A 1785 law led to the development of the pot still
The last few centuries has been full of England placing all kinds of laws and restrictions on Ireland, and for the sake of moving things along, we’re going to leave it — mostly — at the statement that a lot of these laws impacted the legality and price of whiskey. There’s one that’s worth taking a closer look at, and that’s the Malt Tax of 1785. With Irish bootleggers skirting previous laws, the English decided to target the raw materials (i.e., malted barley) that went into whiskey production, instead of the whiskey itself.
Did Ireland find a new way around this, too? Of course they did, and it led to the development of pot still whiskey. In a nutshell, whiskey up to this point was made with a mash bill that was entirely malted barley, which is why the new law had the potential to be so devastating.
The widely-accepted method of distillation involved malting (or germinating) the barley to kick-start the fermentation process. Distillers now, though, started using only a fraction of the malted barley along with unmalted barley and other grains in small batches distilled in pot stills. That small percentage of malted barley was enough to start fermentation, without the penalties slapped on by the British. It was a huge deal: Fast forward a few decades, and Ireland’s whiskey producers were supplying about 80% of the world’s whiskey — and it was almost solely pot still whiskey.
Jameson, Teeling, and Powers were founded within a few years of each other
It was here that several big players came into the industry, and they’re all going to end up having a monumental impact over the course of centuries. The first was Scottish-born John Jameson, who headed to Ireland in the 1770s, set up the Jameson distillery a decade or so later, and over the course of the next century, it grew to a 6-acre complex. (The first Jameson died in 1823, but it remained a family-run business.)
Next was Powers, founded by James Power in 1791. He started out as an innkeeper who decided distilling and selling his own whiskey was the way to go, and it wasn’t until 1822 that the operation turned into John Power & Son. At the turn of the 20th century, it had a physical footprint that rivaled Jameson.
There’s a few others worth mentioning, including the Roe family. Peter Roe kicked off the family’s distilling legacy in 1757, and when George Roe inherited it (a few generations later) in 1832, he would spend the next 50 years growing George Roe & Co. Distillery into the world’s largest. (They would ultimately close in 1926.) Also opening in Dublin was a relatively small operation established in 1782 by Walter Teeling — and again, this is a name to remember. Finally, there’s the relative newcomer on the block. Midleton is one of the biggest names in the industry today, and its doors opened in 1825.
The Coffey still was patented, and kept whiskey running around the clock
There are two kinds of people in this world, those who embrace change and innovation, and those who yell at clouds and lament the fact that things aren’t the same as they used to be. In the case of the invention of the Coffey still, it’s the big names — Jameson, Power, and Roe — in the latter category.
First: Aeneas Coffey was a government official and engineer who, in 1831, redesigned the model for a new still that became known as the Coffey still. It was a huge deal. Current Irish whiskey production relied on pot stills, which worked by distilling whiskey in batches. The Coffey still allowed for the distillation process to run continuously. You can see how that would mean a much more efficient process, but what it also meant was the big (and most powerful) whiskey producers ensured the you-know-what hit the fan.
There was a huge discussion over just what Irish whiskey was, and it was a debate that went on for decades. It wasn’t until 1905 that a court case led to labeling laws regarding what could be called Irish whiskey, what was grain whiskey, and how it was made. Interestingly, where Ireland mostly rejected the idea of Coffey’s continuous still, the Scottish had no such qualms. And that’s an important lesson: It led to Scotland far outpacing Ireland in terms of the whiskey industry, and sometimes, it’s worth giving change a chance.
A series of events nearly wiped out the Irish whiskey industry entirely
Now we’re getting into the modern era with a section of history that could have an entire Netflix series dedicated to it. (Are you listening, Netflix?) Although the Irish whiskey industry had been weathering the oppressive boot heel of the English for a long time, things started to go sideways in a big way in 1914. That’s the start of World War I, which is when it became too dangerous for Irish whiskey shipments to continue.
This is about the same time that Ireland was fighting its own war. The War of Independence against Britain led to Irish independence in 1922, but now, Britain was no longer a viable customer for Irish whiskey. (Interestingly, Jameson’s distillery was right in the middle of one of the biggest fights, the Easter Rising of 1916.) This time period saw the industry dealt one more catastrophic blow: Prohibition in the U.S.
That was enacted in 1920, and with the loss of the U.S. as a straightforward export partner, a domino effect started. Distilleries were forced to close, countless people lost their jobs, and by the time Prohibition was repealed in 1933, there was no whiskey to sell. Scottish distilleries stepped up to fill the void, and things were looking incredibly dire, indeed. The final blow came on the heels of that. In the 1930s, the conflict between Ireland and Britain turned economic, and Ireland was no longer exporting to any British-held territory.
Three remaining rivals got together to save the industry
This next part of the story is pretty incredible, and it involves the big names we talked about earlier. By the 1960s, the Irish whiskey industry was pretty much non-existent. There were only a few distilleries left, Scottish spirits were a big deal, and things weren’t looking up. The years around World War II only saw more distilleries closing, and let’s fast-forward to the 1960s.
That’s when there were only three survivors: Jameson, Powers, and Midleton (Cork Distillers). Instead of throwing down with each other and fighting for the rest of the market, something wild happened. The three men at the head of each of these companies got together at Shane Jameson’s house and decided to merge in Irish Distillers, with the end goal of rebuilding the entire industry — together.
Can we take a minute and appreciate just how much better the world would be if that kind of attitude was more prolific? The idea was to promote the entire industry over individual brands, and it meant not only a pooling of resources, but former competitors helping each other for the love of the industry and heritage. Less than 10 years after the merger was complete, the distillery at Midleton was completely overhauled to serve at the center of production for all three, and it’s credited with being the move that set the industry on the way to a revival.
Pernod-Ricard stepped in to save the saviors
It hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Irish Distillers, though. Entering into the 1980s, there was some growth and almost just as much conflict. At the center of that was John Teeling, who was incredibly outspoken about what he saw as wild miss-management of Irish Distillers. After a takeover bid failed, he opened Cooley Distillery — and again, that’ll be important later. Irish Distillers may not have liked Teeling’s comments, but it quickly became clear that not all was well. In 1988, the British-owned Grand Metropolitan with Cantrell & Cochrane kicked off a £200 ($499) million hostile takeover, and given the long history of Britain’s interference with Irish whiskey — and indeed, all of Ireland — you can imagine how well that was received even before it became common knowledge that at least one of the original three brands was on the chopping block.
In an attempt to prevent the Brits from taking over Irish whiskey, to protect jobs, and ensure the survival of all brands, Irish Distillers turned to a French company: Pernod-Ricard. It offered $442 million for the company, along with promises to grow the company, not start cutting.
Pernod-Ricard won, and Irish Distillers is still under its umbrella. The transition wasn’t an easy one, with both a condemnation of selling Irish whiskey off into the control of a foreign corporation, and not a little bit of relief about the fact that hey, at least it wasn’t the British.
Teeling’s 2015 opening was a huge deal
Today, Teeling often gets a shout-out as having some of the best Irish whiskeys on the market, and it goes back to our mention of John Teeling and the Cooley Distillery. That distillery was founded in 1987 and by 2014, it was under the umbrella of Suntory Holdings. (You might recognize that as the parent company of Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, and a slew of other beverage companies.)
John Teeling was related to the Walter Teeling who set up that little distillery in Dublin back in 1782, and he’s also related to Jack and Stephen Teeling. They’re the ones who opened the current incarnation of Teeling Whiskey in 2015, and given that it was the first time Dublin had seen the opening of a new whiskey distillery in more than 125 years, it was a big deal.
Teeling started by selling not whiskey that had been distilled at the new facility, but at Cooley whiskey that had been bought back from Suntory. Distilling started almost immediately, and that kicked off a resurgence in distillery openings, and was soon followed by companies like Roe & Co. and Pearse Lyons.
Irish whiskey is recognized — and protected — by the EU
There are a lot of different types of champagne, but you may have heard that it’s not technically Champagne (with a capital letter) unless it comes from that region of France. That’s because France’s famous beverage has protection from the EU, and Irish whiskey has it, too.
The official term for the protection awarded to spirits connected to a certain place is geographical indication, and the idea is that it protects the integrity of a product. Not just anyone can make and sell Irish whiskey, and when you see that label you know that it’s the real deal. When Irish whiskey was awarded GI (geographical indication) status in 2019, that was actually another layer of protection. In 1994, the U.S. had signed an agreement guaranteeing that only whiskey made in Ireland could be sold as Irish whiskey.
Surprisingly, Irish whiskey is one of the few Irish products that has GI protection … in spite of being known for producing some seriously stellar stuff, including dairy (and Irish butter that’s way better than what’s produced in America) and lamb, a major ingredient in some of Ireland’s most delicious dishes. In 2023, only 15 Irish products had been awarded GI status, compared to 891 Italian products.
Small distilleries became more viable, kicking off a rebirth of Irish whiskey
Irish whiskey has come a long way from being centered around the big three, and there are a number of smaller whiskey companies that are once again making inroads into the U.S. In addition to the precedent set by Teeling, legislation was overhauled to loosen restrictions on what it took to get licenses and permissions to open distilleries. There were 38 whiskey distilleries at the end of 2020, and in 2022, exports broke the €1 billion mark.
Just as importantly, the industry has helped add a whole new layer to Ireland’s tourism trade. While everyone has always gone to the Emerald Isle for the stunning scenery and rich history, foodies can now book tours through distilleries that are now offering all kinds of experiences, from whiskey tastings to a peek behind the curtain at what goes into each and every bottle. You can even book whiskey cruises, and it’s projected to only get bigger and better as the years go on.
