Celebrating Irish Whiskeys and the Emerald Isle

Ireland is the home of whiskey, but a decade ago there were just four Irish distilleries. Incredibly, between 1758 and 1987 just two new Irish distilleries opened--Midleton in 1975 and Cooley in 1987--joining Bushmills, the world's oldest licensed distillery, and Kilbeggan. Between 1987 and 2013, exactly ZERO new distilleries formed. However, there has been a renaissance since 2013, with 30 new distilleries opening their doors in the last 8 years. Today there are more than three dozen active whiskey distilleries on the Emerald Isle.

The U.S. is now the largest export market for Irish whiskey, accounting for 51% of all sales growth over the last decade and 42% of total sales in 2019, according to the Irish Whiskey Association. Irish whiskey sales in the U.S. were a tiny fraction of those of Scotland a decade ago but the gap has closed substantially since then and is expected to be completely gone by 2029. Over one million tourists visited Irish distilleries in 2019, up by more than 50% since just 2015. 

Irish whiskeys traditionally:

-Are distilled using single pot stills-

-Are triple distilled-

-Are always at least double distilled-

-Are distilled from barley and corn, although increasingly are using oats, rye and wheat-