€25m Walsh Distillery opens

Whiskey distilling returned to County Carlow after an absence of over 200 years recently as Walsh Whiskey Distillery founders husband and wife Bernard & Rosemary Walsh officially opened their €25 million distillery by the banks of the River Barrow at Royal Oak, County Carlow.

This is now distilling the company’s The Irishman and Writers Tears brands, already selling in 40 countries worldwide.

Augusto Reina, Chief Executive of Illva Saronno SpA of Milan (owners of brands Disaronno and Tia Maria) which has a 50% share in Royal Oak also officiated at the opening.

The distillery is the only independent Irish whiskey distillery producing all three styles of Irish whiskey – pot still, malt and grain – from its two production lines using both pot and column stills.

It has the capacity to produce 650,000 cases annually and will allocate up to 15% of its annual production to contract sales.

The distillery will also include two maturation houses with capacity for 60,000 barrels. Work on these buildings will commence in 2017.

The distillery’s visitor experience will open to the public from this July. Altogether, the Royal Oak operations will create 55 permanent and part-time jobs in the Carlow area over five years with the support of The Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, through Enterprise Ireland.