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Work starts on Dublin Liberties Distillery
By Amy HopkinsQuintessential Brands has commenced work converting a historic Dublin building into a €15 million (US$16m) Irish whiskey distillery.
Darryl McNally (right) celebrates construction work starting on The Dublin Liberties Distillery with Sinead O’Frighil, the company’s marketing director
The firm acquired the Dublin Whiskey Company in March last year, taking over its plans to build The Dublin Liberties Distillery – based in Dublin’s 300-year-old Old Mill Street building, a former mill and tannery.
Initial plans stated the project would cost €10m (US$10.7), but this figure has now increased to €15m (US$16m). The distillery will support 50 jobs during its construction and a further 19 permanent positions once the distillery and visitor centre opens.
Construction work will take approximately 12 months to complete. Once finished, the distillery will produce Quintessential Brands’s The Dublin Liberties and The Dubliner Irish whiskey brands, which are currently distilled at third party sites.
The distillery will feature a “visitor experience” and “unique natural spring water source”, and will aim to conserve the original architecture of the building.
“Our team is working extremely hard on the new distillery and visitor centre and we are delighted that construction is underway,” said Darryl McNally, general manager and master distiller of The Dublin Liberties Distillery, and former master distiller for Bushmills.
“Our goal is for The Dublin Liberties Distillery to become one of the leading whiskey producers in Ireland. We are building a world-class distillery in the heart of Dublin with a visitor experience like no other. It will perfectly complement all the other developments in what is fast becoming the most exciting part of Dublin.”
Dublin based SSA Architects has been appointed to oversee the design and construction of the new distillery, based in The Liberties – once the hub of whiskey distillation in Dublin.
“The new distillery will provide a home for our collection of established Irish whiskey brands including The Dubliner and The Dublin Liberties, which are on sale in over 30 international markets from the USA to Australia,” added McNally.
“We have a very clear vision for the type of best in class liquids we want to produce and the brands we want to create under The Dublin Liberties Distillery banner.”
The distillery, which will produce single malt whiskey, plans to combine “traditional distillation practices with the very latest in modern technologies”. It is slated to open in spring 2018.
In 2015, Quintessential invested €4m in expanding First Ireland Spirits, announcing plans to more than double production of its Irish creams and liqueurs.