1. It Came From The East – As people dispersed around the globe around 2000BC – fermented drinks were being used in rituals and celebrations all over the world. Sometime around the 4th century – distillation was rediscovered in present day Iraq, Iran and Syria after finding its way across from Northern Pakistan.
From this starting point distillation improved and spread across to Italy and Spain – in a place called Salerno in Italy, a university was created which put the first distillation texts in writing.
The distillate they made was called Aqua Vitae in Latin, Italian acquavite, the French eau-de-vie, the German aquavit, the Scandinavian akvavit and more, including the Gaelic uisge beatha – translated as the water of life.
2. Arrival On The Island – How distillation came to Ireland is shrouded in mystery, but it is safe to say Irish monks travelled to Egypt, Syria, Italy and Spain from the 8th century onwards and would have found the technology of distillation in books written in Latin and then brought them back to the island.
Spirits were at first valued for their medicinal properties and in Europe the art of distilling was generally spread by monks and apothecaries. Spirit drinking became increasingly popular after the Black Death of late 1340 and spirits were frequently prescribed by doctors in cases of plague and other fevers.
We know that in the 15th century Irish monks were making whiskey or aqua vaite as it was written in ‘Annals of Clonmacnoise’ that an Irish chieftain in 1405 state “Richard Magrenell, chieftain of Moyntyreolas, died at Christmas by taking a surfeit of aqua vitae, to him aqua mortis! – he died.
Irish Whiskey was beginning to gain fans including ‘Queen Elizabeth I’ who in 1541 had stocks of it delivered to her court. The English writers of the reign of Queen Elizabeth considered our ‘usquebaugh’ better than the aqua vitae of England.
3. The Government Steps In – By 1556 whiskey had become so popular that the English Government felt it necessary to impose legislative controls. The act decreed that “all those making whiskey, except for peers, gentlemen and borough freemen making it for their own use, would henceforth require a licence from the Lord Deputy.”
1618 – For the first time, England imposed a levy on malt . Malting barley is converting starch to sugar , therefore a sugar tax was put on malted barley , the government took a fraction of Irish distilleries income due to this high taxation.
The big increase in its appeal came in 1661, when an excise began to be levelled on whisky. Initially small, it grew over time, and dramatically increased from 1s a gallon to 6s a gallon between 1785 and 1815, in order to fund the war with Napoleon. Naturally, brewing locally with a tax of 0s a gallon became an attractive proposition.
4. Poitin Time – Poitin at this time became ridiculously popular both as a drink and often for use in medicines, at least partially because no cheaper alternative was available. Naturally, brewing locally with a tax of 0s a gallon became an attractive proposition.
Which put a lot of smaller legal distillers out of business. The government were well aware of how much revenue was being lost to this illegal trade, and in 1785 they passed an Act making unlicensed private distillation illegal. Large distillers received licenses and were forced to pay the duty, cottage distillers began to be stamped on quite thoroughly.
In truth, the end of widespread illegal distillation was soon to follow. Firstly the end of the wartime excise duty made legal spirits more affordable, and thus made the risks of poitin-making less worthwhile. Secondly, the spiritual dangers of poitin-making became a factor, as the local Catholic bishops of Raphoe and Derry (both Temperance supporters) declared the brewing of poitin a sin.
4. The Industrial Age – The first whiskey distillery in the world was Kilbeggan distillery in Co Meath – established in 1757. This was the start of Industrialisation of Irish whiskey. Soon to follow were John & William Jameson, Roe and Powers of Dublin which became known as the big 4. They had a combined output of 10 million gallons in the 1850’s
By 1860 the number of legal Irish distilleries had risen to 90. Irish whiskey was taking its place as the most popular whiskey in the world, and, in the mid-18th century when a tiny insect infested and destroyed nearly all the wine grape vines in France, Irish whiskey became the world’s most popular spirit.
Irish whiskey was sold in all corners of the globe and was entustucally drank by Tsar’s and presidents alike. After 1870 we became known for our aged pot still whiskeys and we were producing over 15 million gallons of whiskey each year.
6. The Scots Start to Blend – The coffey still was invented by an Irishman called Aenues Coffey. The son of a distillery he made his initial money by collecting taxes on liquor and enforcing the law of the land as a tax gauger. His career was cut short when he was bayoneted in Donegal after dismantling an illegal still operation.
During his recovery at his father’s distillery he improved upon Robert Steins invention from 1828 to come up with the continuous still. The still was efficient, self cleaning and could be operated by a single person. With hsi new spirit under his arm he set off to conquer the whiskey world. This did not happen as the IRish whiskey industry kicked him out of Dublin, shouting about his tasteless silent spirit, before heading to Scotland to eventually sell many stills to the flagging Scots whiskey industry who were tired of being in Ireland’s Shadow. A few years later blended whiskey was born.
7. Irish Whiskey Goes Down The Drain – The Irish looked upon blended whiskey with outright disdain and their export sales began losing out to Scotch blends. The situation became so bad that in 1879 the four Dublin distillers joined forces to publish a book titled “Truths about Whisky”, which called for the banning of blended whiskey.
In 1909 parliament in London decided what was and wasn’t whiskey and after many long years they decided that grain or silent spirit could be called whiskey. The next nail in the coffin of Irish Whiskey was placed when the United States closed its markets from 1920 – 1933 due to Prohibition, during this time bootleg whisky from Scotland managed to get over and when prohibition finally ended, the American palate had acquired a taste for the Scotch which began to blaze a trail throughout North America and into the British Empire.
Irish whiskey, meanwhile, would have to attempt to negotiate the First World War, the Easter Rising, the Irish War of Independence (and export restrictions), Prohibition in America (their largest export market), the Irish Civil War, the Anglo-English Trade War (where it was essentially locked out of markets in the Commonwealth) and the Great Depression. By the end of the 1930s, these gruelling years had been all but fatal to the industry.
The number of Irish distilleries dwindled to just 5 by the mid 1950s before, in order to survive, the remaining distillers in the Republic of Ireland – Jameson, Powers and the Cork Distilleries Company – merged to form Irish Distillers Ltd. in 1966. Bushmills in Northern Ireland joined Irish Distillers in 1972
8. Revival And Renaisance – The monopoly, meanwhile, was finally broken in 1987 when John Teeling purchased Ceimici Teo (which produced potato alcohol) and converted it into a whiskey distillery named Cooley. This new, independent distillery was founded the same year that Irish Distillers was purchased by Pernod Ricard, who had seen the potential of the resurgent Irish whiskey category.
Irish whiskey continued to build momentum throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, and Diageo would go on to purchase Bushmills in 2005. This only saw the trend continue as Pernod Ricard and Diageo, the two largest spirits groups in the world, both used their considerable resources to promote Irish whiskey, investing in distilleries and brands, and seeing the category grow by as much as 15-20% year after year.
We now have 26 operating distilleries in Ireland and another 20 in the planning stages. We are now exporting over €623 million worth of whiskey to the rest of the world with Irish whiskey being the fasting growing spirit category in the world.