Sod turned on €35m Tullamore Dew distillery

A €35m distillery to bring one of the world’s best-selling whiskeys back to its roots has officially started construction with a sod turning ceremony in Offaly, reports this mornings Irish Independent.

Tullamore Dew production will return to a pot still and malt distillery on a 58- acre site near Clonminch, Co Offaly for the first time since 1954. Up to 200 jobs will be created during construction of the plant which will be big enough to produce 1.84 million litres or 1.5 million cases of whiskey a year.

Simon Coveney, Minister for Agriculture, turned the sod on the new plant yesterday.

“For many years, Irish whiskey has been one of the strongest and most distinctive products in the world, renowned for its quality and heritage, with a dual impact in terms of our exports and tourism. Tullamore Dew is one of the key drivers of this success,” he said.

“A lot of people mightn’t know this but 80pc of exports out of Scotland are now in the form of whisky in terms of value.

“We haven’t seen a new distillery built in Ireland for what, a 100 years maybe more?”

Twenty-five people will be employed at the distillery. The investment is being made by Tullamore Dew’s parent company, William Grant & Sons, as the brand has almost doubled its worldwide sales to 850,000 cases since 2005.

The distillery will open in autumn next year with two warehouses to hold 55,000 casks of whiskey and 14km of piping to bring water into the distillery.

William Grant & Sons, an independent, family-owned Scottish company, employs more than 90 people in Ireland – in Tullamore, Clonmel and Dublin.