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Jennifer Nickerson, MD Tipperary Boutique Distillery, is the only female whiskey distillery and poitin producer in Ireland. Her husband Liam is the sixth generation of the Ahearn Family to grow and harvest barley on the land situated at Ballindoney outside of Cahir in Co. Tipperary. She tells Drinks Industry Ireland about their recent success with their premium Single Estate Whiskey Distillery and how she’s focused on setting up ‘new traditions’ in their sustainably run distillery

Congratulations on your double win at the Irish Made Awards! How does it feel to be recognised not only as the overall winner, but also for your leadership in sustainability?

What an honour for us all! We are still on a high! We felt ‘seen’ and both awards were a testament to the hard work that goes into running our grain to glass distillery. Sustainability has always been an important part of our vision for the distillery and to be recognised and rewarded for that is everything!

What do you think sets Tipperary Boutique Distillery apart from other Irish whiskey producers in that regard?

Home-grown spirits from our own barley, grown, harvested and distilled on our farm take time, whiskey in particular. Distilling and overseeing cask finishes requires infinite patience and our size and autonomy also affords us the opportunity to do that and to still choose to create some truly original spirits. I believe that we can take chances on different spirits that other, larger distilleries might not be able to.

Sustainability is clearly a core part of your success story. Can you tell us more about the specific practices or innovations that you engage in?

We were the first distillery to run our stills using solar power in Ireland. Plus, we grow our own grain and use water that runs underneath the distillery on our own farm, making it more sustainable with less food miles involved. We also don’t have any waste products with all of our co-products (spent grains and pot ale) having the ability to be spread to land or fed to animals such as pigs or cows. So it’s an entirely sustainable process in that everything that we use can go back to the land.

The Irish whiskey scene has grown rapidly in recent years. How do you balance staying true to traditional distilling roots while also pushing for innovation and differentiation?

This is a time in Irish whiskey when everyone is experimenting and everyone is trying to figure out what works best for their spirit. We are ourselves experimenting by working on fermentations, distillations, cuts, maturations, maturation lengths and cask types.
Because we have had such a massive upsurge in the number of distilleries in Ireland, we can only believe that everyone is going through an experimental process presently. We have concentrated on our innovation and we’re not afraid to try a mezcal or sake finish on a single malt, a rioja finished gin or to distill an apple brandy as we have done in conjunction with our neighbour Con Traas from the nearby apple farm.
But at the same point in time, we are aiming to create spirit that will stay true to its roots, within the parameters of GI and also be part of a future tradition. We want to set up a spirit that we can look back on in 10, 20, 30 years’ time and be proud of, so I suppose we are in the midst of setting up ‘new traditions’ now in some respect.

What opportunities or challenges do you see in the whiskey distilling space?

Opportunities abound as we know that whiskey aficionados are choosing ‘less but better’, meaning that they are happy to buy smaller amounts of whiskey, but that it needs to be great. This clearly fits into our model to produce smaller amounts of better, authentic home-grown Irish single malt.
In particular, we would love to secure more support from larger retailers – chains and duty frees – whose customers would appreciate the opportunity to support smaller, authentic Irish distilleries such as our own.

Your new Rocking Rioja Gin is a bold move, maturing an Irish gin in a Rioja cask for three and a half years is something we haven’t seen before. What inspired you to experiment with this particular combination of Irish and Spanish influences?

In truth, I had a beautiful Bodegas Faustino Rioja cask and had some gin going a begging from a distillation. My curiosity was piqued as to what would happen if I combined the two and wow, was I rewarded! It’s a wonderful gin which is picking up quite a bit of interest. Again, our size and autonomy allows us to experiment and create some wonderful spirits like this!

With only 430 bottles available, this release is clearly something special. Is this a one-off experiment, or do you see a future for cask-matured gins as part of your broader innovation strategy?

Oh, we’ve already had a number of people interested in gin maturations so hopefully that will be something that we will see a lot more of in the future. Watch this space!

Looking ahead, what’s next for Tipperary Boutique Distillery?

My dream would be to see our spirits celebrated in more bars and on shelves in Ireland and we’re working hard on making this a reality.

Finally, if you had to pick a favourite drink, what would you choose?

I think it would have to be our cornerstone HGB Sherry Cask Finish 8 Year Old Single Malt which we are just about to release now in time for Christmas. It’s literally bursting with ‘Christmas Cake’ flavours – cherries, sweet red fruits, spices like cloves, cinnamon. It’s a really rich impactful spirit, yet it’s very approachable and won’t overwhelm someone who’s new to whiskey. It’s a fantastic drink – maybe the best thing that we have released so far and we certainly took heart in its winning a coveted Gold Medal in the Irish Whiskey Masters Awards 2025 before its much anticipated general release later this