Irish whiskey distillery invests £1.5m in exports

Echlinville Distillery – the first licensed distillery to be set up in Northern Ireland in 130 years – is to invest £1.5 million in broadening its markets for Irish whiskey.

The Echlinville Distillery is to invest £1.5m in broadening its export markets

The distillery, a family-owned business with its own maltings located on a 100-acre site in County Down, received its license to distil whisky in May 2013, and expects its own whiskey to come of age in 2016.

With an extra £216,000 investment from Invest Northern Ireland, Echlinville will now set up a project that will allow their product to extend its global listings.

The distillery, initially set up by Shane Braniff in 2012, will commence production of Irish whiskey and other spirits for export within the next few months.

“Our support has been shaped to enable Echlinville Distillery to develop and bring its planned whiskey brands and other spirits to markets outside Northern Ireland as quickly as practicable,” said John Hood, Invest Northern Ireland’s director of food and tourism

“Shane Braniff’s expertise in the whiskey business has enabled him to pinpoint substantial business opportunities particularly in the US and to set up the necessary distribution channels required to ensure success of the new premium spirits in what is a highly competitive marketplace.”

Braniff is currently marketing the distillery’s Dunville Irish Whiskey in Europe and the US, using a consignment of liquid from another unnamed distillery that is finished and blended at Echlinville.

His Echlinville Dsistillery has plans to install two additional stills later this year, as well as open a visitors’ centre, museum and restaurant in 2015.

It recently revealed plans to allow customers to design their own bespoke Irish whiskey at the distillery.