Tullamore Distillery

"Uncle Charles chose the path of greatest resistance." So said Peter Gordon, CEO of William Grant & Sons, last week at the launch of their new Tullamore Distillery. He was recalling a trip with Charles Gordon around Ireland to assess possible locations for the distillery that would supply their Tullamore Dew brand. There were suitable sites, and then there was Tullamore, boggy underfoot and lacking a rather essential ingredient: water.

Peter Gordon, CEO William Grant & Sons

William Grant & Sons is a family-owned company whose statement of values commits to "long-term thinking". Despite the daunting shortcomings of the Tullamore site, it was perhaps an easy choice for a company that can draw on a century and more of experience, and imagine itself looking back to this moment from a century hence. Expediency has preserved the Tullamore Dew brand in recent decades as it bounced from distillery to distillery, owner to owner. But 60 years after distillation ceased in Tullamore town, the Gordon family has brought it home.

Any problems were rendered trifles by the application of €35m and 1,200 distillery engineers and construction workers. 250,000 tonnes of spongy peat and soil were excavated (and redistributed to become the rolling landscape around the distillery) and 2,300 piles were sunk. Offaly County Council solved the water shortage by laying a 14km pipe from the Slieve Bloom Mountains. On September 17th, 2014, a mere 20 months after planning permission was granted, construction was complete, the stills were hot and hundreds of invited guests watched as the spirit flowed.

Not only was the build completed on-schedule and on-budget, they even brought forward some construction from Phase 2, not originally due to commence until 2019. That includes the section with the three pagoda roofs in the photo above, known as "Distillery House". (You can click on all photos to enlarge.)

The main building is a strikingly hefty presence in fairly flat and open countryside, but is visually broken up horizontally and vertically by clever detailing. Cues were taken from old distillery buildings around Ireland, echoing here in the small windows and brick lintels, for example.

The Tullamore Dew visitor centre in Tullamore town inhabits a late-19th Century bonded warehouse belonging to the original distillery. Observe the brick window surrounds and compare to the large arched windows in the new distillery that frame the copper stills.

Tullamore Dew Visitor Centre

Note the brick detailing, copper finials, Spanish slate roofs and yorkstone walls, rough-hewn at ground level and dressed above. 

The new building diverges from its forebears most obviously in its colour. That's yorkstone, less porous than native stone. Yellow sandstone is very unusual on a traditional industrial building in this country, though there is a light sprinkling of it on Dublin city streets, most notably, perhaps, on the Irish Whiskey Museum. It's warm and cheery, and they say it will look just as good in a hundred years' time.

Let's take a look inside. Distillery House - the bit under the three pagoda roofs, recalling the malting kilns of yesteryear - is where VIP visitors will be shown a good time, besides housing some administrative functions. This is the bar, on the first floor:

I'll have a, umm... Tullamore Dew, please. That's Ewen Cameron, Engineering Manager, at the end of the bar.

At the far end is the blending room, lined with cabinets full of cask samples, for serious product development work, and for hosting tastings.

One floor up and it's fine dining and comfortable lounging, accessorised by antique bits and bobs. They were still working on this as I passed through. I reckon they could warm it up with a few big old Persian carpets.

This level is directly under the pagoda roofs, which are exposed internally to reveal their traditional wooden construction.

Along one wall stretches a heavy, wooden screen concealing a view that drew gasps from our group when it was revealed, the gleaming industrial facility through the picture window a startling contrast to the wood panelling and antiques of our surroundings.

The shiny brewing and distilling floor has been decluttered by hiding services below, at ground floor level. A clear path leads visitors through the process of making whiskey. Let's take a look from the other side of the glass.

Mash conversion tun

The little window on the left of the photo above overlooks the grain mill, a Variomill conditioning wet roller. It's a wet process because the unmalted barley included in the mash for Irish pot still spirit is exceptionally hard and must be softened before it's crushed.

In the mash conversion tun, the milled grain is mixed with hot water. Enzymes in the malt convert the starch to sugar.

Pegasus C lauter tun

In the lauter tun, the sugary liquid (wort) is separated from the spent grain and goes on to the next stage, fermentation. A weaker solution of sugar is flushed out with additional water, stored in weak-wort tanks and used for for the next mash, so as not to waste any sugar.

Weak-wort tanks

There are six 34,000 litre fermenters, with room for six more. With the addition of yeast, the sugar is converted to alcohol in these vessels over three days.

Fermenters

The result is a beer, or wash, of 9.5-10% ABV. Now we are ready to distil.

Pot stills. L-R: low wines, spirit, pot still wash, malt wash

The spirit for Tullamore Dew is distilled three times, in three different stills. The first is the wash still, followed by the low wines still, then the spirit still. At each stage the alcohol concentration climbs, ending up between 80% and 84% ABV.

You will notice there are four stills in the photo above. That's because there are two wash stills. Which one is used depends on whether malt (from malted barley) or pot still (from a mix of malted and unmalted barley) spirit is being made.

Note the offset neck of the wash still in the centre of the photo above. The shape of this pot is based on the still pattern used at the original Tullamore distillery that closed in 1954. Those stills ended up at Kilbeggan distillery where they can be seen today, though they are not in use. Note the similarity in shape:

The original Tullamore pot stills, now at Kilbeggan distillery

There is space beside the malt wash still for two more stills. These will duplicate the low wines and spirit still so that malt and pot still spirit can be made in parallel. When that's done, production capacity will double from 1.84mla (million litres of alcohol per annum) to 3.69mla. The plumbing for this is already in place so it's a small enough upgrade that could be in place by 2018.

Malt wash still, with space for two more stills

John Quinn, Global Brand Ambassador for Tullamore Dew, is adamant that the taste of Tullamore Dew won't change when its spirit is made on these stills, rather than on those at Midleton. I asked Brian Kinsman, William Grant's Master Blender, if he would be able to achieve this. Even though they were still dialling in the stills and hadn't started with the pot still mash, he didn't foresee any difficulty achieving the flavour profile required by, for example, adjusting boiling rates and cut points.

(I'm sure there are many of us who plan to keep by a bottle of today's Dew to compare with future versions to see if they pull this off.)

It's worth an aside at this point to note that "Dew" is not part of the name of the distillery. The Tullamore Distillery will make Tullamore Dew but other styles of whiskey under other brands are possible. I look forward to tasting the best whiskeys that this new kit can produce.

The William Grant company has an unusual tradition when commissioning a new still. Their coppersmith, Dennis McBain, insists on "sweetening the still" by boiling water in it, along with a bunch of juniper. This happened in Tullamore in August. Nobody knows where or why the tradition began. Dennis is the longest-serving Willam Grant employee, having started in 1958, and he picked it up from a predecessor.

A feature of most still rooms is the spirit safe. The condensed output from each still passes through the safe and can be diverted to various receiver tanks. The idea is to allow only the middle - and best - part of each distillation to proceed to the next stage. Like the pot stills, the safe here was made by Forsyths of Scotland.

Spirit safe

Unusually, it is triangular in shape. This is a reference to Tullamore Dew's triple-distillation and also its triple blend recipe of pot still, malt and grain whiskey.

A control room and lab sits adjacent to the still floor. The level of automation is such that the whole distillery can be run by just 14 people (most recruited locally). Remarkable.

Behind the main building are various receiver tanks and grain silos...

... and a pipeline to the filling store:

The filling store. Don't worry, that's not spirit soaking the floor, just water.

Conveyors will be added later to move the casks around the store. From there, casks go to a warehouse to rest for a few years.

Warehouses

There are currently two warehouses built, with planning permission for eleven more. Each can hold 55,000 casks.

In a nice touch, the first casks to be filled have been circulating around Tullamore pubs to be signed by locals. More casks were signed by guests at the launch last week.

Cask staves signed by guests

The distillery is up and running now, though tweaking continues. It can produce pot still and malt spirit but not yet the third component of Tullamore Dew, i.e. grain spirit. That's a lighter spirit made in a column still rather than a pot still. Planning for a grain distillery is already under way. A visitor centre and cooperage are coming too, along with more warehouses.

It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.
- Roy Disney

William Grant's values are written all over this project. The fit and finish of the construction and landscaping is superb, no doubt intended to reflect the quality of the craftsmanship within. I am not all that familiar with Grant's non-Irish portfolio but I had a chance to work through some of it during my visit to Tullamore, sampling Monkey Shoulder, Grant's Family Reserve, Glenfiddich 18-year old and Reyka Icelandic Vodka. They were uniformly excellent.

Charles Gordon, sadly, passed away last year, but he helped to give Tullamore Distillery the best possible start. There is no hurrying the next step, but the whiskey that finally emerges from those warehouses should be worth the wait.

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The Distillery Ambassador, Jane Maher, will be at the next Irish Whiskey Society tasting, on Thursday, along with a selection of Tullamore Dew's more unusual and harder-to-find bottlings. If you are in Dublin, do come!

Tullamore Dew Phoenix Celebratory Exclusive Single Batch

This fearsome-looking bird greets VIP visitors to the plush end of the new Tullamore Distillery.

The phoenix is the central motif on Tullamore town's coat-of-arms, recalling a major fire of 1785 and the town's subsequent reconstruction. It was more recently co-opted as a metaphor for the return of distilling to Tullamore after a gap of 60 years. Tullamore Dew Phoenix was released last year as work on the new distillery progressed.

To commemorate the first flow of spirit last Thursday, the company has taken Tullamore Dew Phoenix and finished it in virgin American oak. They watched it closely in cask and, after 3 months, judged it to have picked up just enough of that fresh wood influence. It was bottled in a limited edition of 2,014 bottles as Tullamore Dew Celebratory Exclusive Single Batch.

Like the original Phoenix, it is a hefty 55% ABV, non-chill filtered. It is a triple-distilled, triple blend -Tullamore's signature recipe of grain, malt and pot still whiskeys blended together. The pot still component of Phoenix is finished for two years in Oloroso casks.

A few of us were fortunate to taste this new expression the day before the grand opening in the company of John Quinn, Tullamore Dew's Global Brand Ambassador. I subsequently noticed what John was too modest to point out then: that it is his signature on each bottle.

John Quinn, Global Brand Ambassador for Tullamore Dew

I checked my notes from some years ago and was reminded that John started with Tullamore Dew in 1974, back when it was made at Powers distillery in Dublin. He has, therefore, spent 40 years nurturing the brand to the success it is today (it is the second most popular Irish whiskey, shifting about 900,000 cases a year, and growing).

The phoenix metaphor implies an intermediate state of total destruction but that's overstating things here. Sure, Tullamore Dew lost its home in 1954 and has kipped on a few couches since then. But it has emerged stronger from the experience because people like John Quinn maintained its unique recipe, evolved its brand, and kept introducing it to new consumers. The 1829 year of establishment declared on bottles of Tullamore Dew and on the front of the new distillery implies a continuity of production and craftsmanship that only stands up thanks to the efforts of John, along with his colleagues and predecessors.

I'm thrilled, then, that the company has honoured John's 40-years and counting by putting his name on this fine whiskey.

There are only 2,014 bottles of this Celebratory Exclusive, a number with obvious significance. The night before the distillery launch, Tom McCabe handed over the keys of the old Tullamore distillery to the new distillery's Process Leader, Denise Devenny, who is responsible for all operations there. It was said that Tom was the last to lock the doors on the old distillery when it shut down in 1954.

Tom was presented with bottle number 1,954 of Tullamore Dew Phoenix Celebratory Exclusive, while Denise received number 2,014.

Denise Devenny (centre-left) receiving the keys of the old Tullamore distillery from Tom McCabe (centre-right)

The whiskey is exclusively available in Ireland, at the Tullamore Dew visitor centre, Dublin Airport, and the Celtic Whiskey Shop in Dublin, at a recommended retail price of €90. (I'll be trying to snag one myself at this price. Excellent value, I think.)

The official tasting notes are below. I'd call out the orange and delicate oak on the finish, with not a hint of dryness. A distinctly oaky smell remained in the glass, reminding me of the pleasant, sweet fragrance of pipe tobacco.

Nose

Rich vanilla with creamy toffee and spice. The Tullamore Dew signature notes of green leafy maltiness are beautifully framed with the warmth of the new American oak. 

Taste

Full oak flavour with vibrant vanilla and cinnamon spice. With water the more delicate floral and fruity notes develop and mingle with the sweet oak notes. 

Finish

Long lasting vanilla sweetness.

Walsh Whiskey Distillery

It must be at least six years since I first spoke with Bernard Walsh. Even then, long before Irish whiskey projects became fashionable, he was dreaming of one day distilling himself. An impossible aspiration, I thought, but on Thursday I was down at Royal Oak, Carlow, turning the sod on Walsh Whiskey Distillery.

The Setting

I parked near the gate of the 40-acre estate and walked up the long drive towards Holloden House, a mid-18th century pile. To my left was a stubble field, recently harvested of its grain. To my right, a line of 200-year old oak trees. Beyond the house, the estate backs on to the River Barrow. Grain, water, oak... the recipe for whiskey is written right into the landscape.

Some of the magnificent trees dating from the early 1800s dotting the estate, including seven species of oak.

There are about 200 oak trees on the estate, comprising seven different species. About 200 species will grow in Carlow, however, and part of the plan is to establish an oak arboretum under the guidance of a horticultural consultant.

Holloden House is a picturesque, overgrown ruin. It won't be part of the distillery proper but will welcome visitors for tastings in fine style when it is eventually restored.

The front of Holloden House

Adjacent buildings

Nobody I asked knew the purpose of the unusually-shaped slits in this wall

The Distillery

The distillery will be a short stroll from the house across a wooden bridge. It's compactly arranged to present the whole process to visitors from grain delivery through milling, mashing, fermenting and distilling to casking. It's then only a tidy barrel-roll out the back door to the onsite maturation warehouses which can hold up to 60,000 casks.

Aerial view showing the river Barrow behind, Holloden House on the left and the new distillery on the right. Image courtesy of Walsh Distillery.

The Irish distilling renaissance has been awaiting a confident, contemporary architectural statement. This is it. There are no pastiche accoutrements like "pagoda" roofs that ape the appearance of Scottish distilleries. A clean, modern line is achieved with natural materials: stone, oak posts, slate, copper. The distillery wears its newness with assurance, nodding politely to its 250-year old neighbour but ready to begin forging its own history.

The new distillery. Image courtesy of Walsh Distillery

The building - designed by architect, James O'Donoghue - showcases its purpose by displaying the copper pots behind a huge glass wall, and by making a feature of the column stills and their height, wrapping them in a tower capped off in glass and copper.

Although the River Barrow flows right behind the distillery, water is so important to the whiskey-making process that it has been given added prominence in the form of two ponds in front of the building. The distillery's cooling water is drawn from the river and circulates through these ponds. A cascade between the ponds contributes the sound of water to the ambience of a distillery visit.

Process water will come from the Barrow Valley Aquifer, directly below the distillery.

Construction should begin in October for completion by the end of 2015, with commissioning of up to 3 months duration from January 2016.

The Whiskey

The distillery will make all three styles of spirit - pot still, malt and grain - under one roof.

Distillery capacity is 2m litres of pure alcohol a year, which translates into 500,000 cases of whiskey (a "case" is 9 litres) or 6m bottles. The whole Irish whiskey industry currently shifts about 6m cases a year so Walsh's output will make a fair splash in the market. Bernard reckons that by size he will rank just after Midleton, Tullamore, Bushmills and Cooley.

The pot still and malt spirits will be triple-distilled in pots already on order from Forsyths in Scotland, who are also supplying much of the rest of the distillery kit. No attempt will be made to replicate the existing Irishman and Writers Tears range - currently made at Midleton - with the new stills. Those whiskeys will continue to be made under contract by Irish Distillers while new expressions are created from the Royal Oak spirit.

Photo courtesy of Walsh Whiskey Distillery

Walsh Whiskey has released both single malts and "blends" of malt and pot still but has never produced a blend in the usual sense of the word, i.e. a whiskey that combines grain with malt and/or pot still. In the new distillery there will be a two-column Coffey still producing grain whiskey. The continuous throughput of a Coffey still produces a lighter style of spirit, very efficiently. It therefore enhances the financial viability of the distillery. It also allows full flexibility when supplying the needs of private labels, something that Walsh has indicated it will do. Bernard tells me he hopes to use Irish-grown wheat in his column still (imported maize is more common in the industry here).

The barley for the pot still and malt whiskeys will be sourced locally too, with malting done by Minch Malt, about 35km away in Athy. The distillery should achieve "field to glass" control over the product it makes with farming and malting done in the vicinity and everything else done on site.

The maturation story has a nice twist. The use of ex-bourbon casks has always been a hallmark of Walsh whiskeys (not exclusively though) and no doubt bourbon will be the mainstay of the new whiskeys too. But Walsh Whiskey Distillery is a joint venture with Italian family-owned company, Illva Saronno, which is in the wine business (besides owning Disaronno, Tia Maria and many other alcohol brands). Walsh already has its eye on reusing those wine casks to age its whiskeys.

Distilling expertise is being provided by Stuart Nickerson, a Scottish whiskey consultant who brings over 30 years of experience in the business, covering production, marketing and management.

Walsh Whiskey has already honed the knack of selecting and blending fine whiskeys, of course. Its relationship with Irish Distillers at Midleton dates back to 1999 when the Hot Irishman Irish-coffee-in-a-bottle product launched. The Irishman whiskey launched in 2006, and Writers Tears (always on my recommended list) followed in 2009. Bernard's annual limited edition selections from the warehouses in Midleton are always a treat. At Royal Oak this week I was able to remind myself just how wonderful the 2013 Irishman Cask Strength was. (Bernard advises me that this year's Writers Tears Cask Strength has turned out to be quite something too.)

Breaking Ground

Ready to dig. Photo courtesy of Walsh Whiskey Distillery.

All 200 guests at the sod-turning ceremony last Thursday had a chance to wield the spade. Only a handful work directly for Walsh Whiskey but most of the rest, I would say, have been involved in some way in Walsh's success to date, or will be with this new phase. Some we heard from during the day: the maltster, the distiller, the architect, the engineer; many were publicly thanked, including the bottler, the county council planner, and representatives of Enterprise Ireland, Bord Bia & the Irish Whiskey Association.

Distributors and marketers are key, of course. It's one thing to make the stuff but how do you get consumers to realise it exists and then buy it, particularly when 95% of your sales are outside Ireland. Walsh sells to 30 countries and its distributors in 12 of those travelled to Ireland for the event. They have to be evangelists for the product, winning over shops and bar owners who, in turn, must persuade their customers to drink it. It takes a strong marketing message emanating from HQ to travel that distance, a message that will be greatly reinforced by having a working distillery with a visitor centre set on a grand estate.

Of course the Italian side was well-represented, led by Illva CEO, Augusto Reina. Besides financial support, Illva also brings serious distribution muscle to the partnership, with a network stretching to 160 countries and with particular strength in the important markets of India and China. At the moment, Walsh seems to be shifting as much liquid as it can lay its hands on but when the taps open at Royal Oak, the pipelines to the rest of the world will be ready.

Rosemary Walsh, Augusto Reina, Bernard Walsh, Minister Ann Phelan

I'll be ready too, with a glass. I'd like to congratulate the founders of Walsh Whiskey Distillery, Rosemary & Bernard Walsh, everyone else at WWD, and their new partners Illva Saronno on this exciting new adventure for Irish whiskey. Slaínte! Salute!

Acknowledgements

I feel very privileged to have helped turn the sod on a new distillery, especially for a company whose whiskeys I enjoy so much. Thank you, Walsh Whiskey, for the invitation and to Bernard Walsh, Shane Fitzharris and Woody Kane who have all been so helpful over the years with information for this site.

Thank you, too, to Conor Dempsey, of Dempsey Corporate, who is the guy you want running and MC'ing an event like this. It was elaborately arranged, with many moving parts, but it all went off as beautifully and enjoyably as the occasion deserved.