Irish Distillers, producer of some of the world’s most well-known and successful Irish whiskeys, has announced €250m investment to build a new whiskey distillery in Midleton Co. Cork in order to meet growing demand.
The distillery will produce Jameson, Powers, Redbreast, Midleton Very Rare, the Spot family and Method and Madness.
It will be situated on a 55-acre site adjacent and connected to the existing Midleton Distillery.
The company, owned by Pernod Ricard, said that subject to a successful planning application, the new distillery will distil pot still and grain whiskey with grain intake, brewing, fermentation, and distillation facilities incorporated into the new site.
The project is expected to generate c.800 jobs during the construction phase, which is expected to be completed in 2025.
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An expanded distilling capacity is expected to increase Midleton Distillery’s requirement for barley and malted barley by up to 50%, which the company intends to source from Irish farmers.
The Irish Distillers project team is partnering with engineering and architecture consultancy firm Arup on the initial design and with Harry Walsh Associates on the planning application.
A planning application is expected to be submitted to Cork County Council towards the end of 2022 and, if successful, construction will commence in 2023.
Speaking at the announcement, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said: “The continued success of the Irish whiskey industry is something that we can be incredibly proud of as a nation.
“Whiskey has been distilled in Midleton for nearly 200 years, and the investment will deliver hundreds of more jobs into the future, both during construction and once the distillery is operational. Today’s announcement is an extremely positive development for Midleton and the wider region, and will further solidify Midleton’s reputation as the home of Irish whiskey.”
Nodjame Fouad, chairman and CEO at Irish Distillers said: “We are immensely proud of the continued strong performance of our full portfolio of Irish whiskeys, led by Jameson which sold over 10 million cases in the year to June 2022.
“The new distillery will be a beautiful, landmark development with sustainability at its core and will serve to further demonstrate our commitment to Midleton and East Cork.”
Leo Clancy, CEO Enterprise Ireland, stated: “Enterprise Ireland is delighted to work with Irish Distillers, and we warmly welcome their announcement today about their ambitious investment plan.”
According to Irish Distillers, the new facility will employ innovative Mechanical Vapor Recompression technology which will see a closed loop system capture, compress and recycle waste heat in the distilling process. Renewable sources of energy, including green hydrogen and biogas, will be used to power the distillery.
Irish Distillers says it has partnered with EI-H2 to explore opportunities to source green hydrogen and carried out research in partnership with MaREI, the SFI Research Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine, hosted by University College Cork, to determine the biomethane potential of the by-products of distillation and design the required anaerobic digestion process necessary to produce biogas.
Irish Distillers will also partner with StanTech on wastewater treatment and biogas production.
Irish Distillers was formed in 1966, when a merger took place between John Power & Son, John Jameson & Son and Cork Distilleries Company. In 1988 Irish Distillers joined Pernod Ricard, the No.2 worldwide producer of wines and spirits with consolidated sales amounting to €10.7 billion FY22.
Pernod Ricard’s portfolio includes Absolut Vodka, Ricard pastis, Ballantine’s, Chivas Regal, Royal Salute, and The Glenlivet Scotch whiskies, Jameson Irish whiskey, Martell cognac, Havana Club rum, Beefeater gin, Malibu liqueur or Mumm and Perrier-Jouët champagnes.
