New packaging for Tullamore Dew
The new packaging was unveiled at a tutored tasting held recently by Tullamore Dew’s Global Brand Ambassador John Quinn in Residence, Dublin.
It’s all part of Tullamore Dew’s investment in a new distillery and visitor centre here.
€4 million is being spent on the redevelopment of the Tullamore Dew Visitor Centre which is expected to see some 40,000 visitors a year and the Tullamore Dew distillery will be opened in Tullamore town around St Patrick’s Day 2014. It’s expected to create some 120 jobs over the next four years.
Initially the distillery – which will house the biggest malt pot still in the country – will have capacity for three million cases but will eventually have capacity for up to eight million cases.
Last year, 2011, sales of Irish whiskey grew eight per cent globally while that of malt scotch grew by just three per cent and that of standard scotch and bourbon by just one per cent, pointed out Shane Hoyne, Global Brand Director for Tullamore Dew, who also reminded us that “The power of the global conglomerates was now behind all Irish whiskies”.
Irish whiskey now sells in over 110 countries around the world with sales expected to top six million cases by the end of the year, all a long way from the 1.6 million case figure in 1990. By 2010 they stood at five million cases and Shane predicts a 7.5 million case total by 2013.
A number of greenfield sites have been marked out for building several warehouses in Tullamore to add to those the company already uses in Clonmel.
Tullamore Dew’s repackaging will hit the Irish market in July, ahead of the global markets.
Tullamore Dew accounts for 25 per cent of the whiskey consumed in the Czech Republic and while there are some 113 distilleries in Scotland there are only four or five here in Ireland. So with the world’s scotch drinkers polishing off some 90 million cases a year, its American whiskey drinkers around 30 million cases and its Canadian whiskey drinkers a further 20 million, there’s considerable room for growth in the global Irish whiskey market. After all, Irish whiskey used sell 10 million cases in the early 1900s.
