Irish Whiskey
Irish whiskey has had a long and conquered history. As far back as the 1770’s there were over 1200 distilleries on the Emerald Isle, however the vast majority had no licence.
By the 1820’s the government had introduced so many taxes on whiskey that there were only 20 legal distilleries but there were still a large amount of illicit stills in operation producing what we know as Poitin.Tax laws were later relaxed and by 1830 the number of Irish distilleries had swelled to 90.
Unfortunately, with mass production comes mass consumption and the resulting temperance movement once again brought the whiskey industry to its knees with 5 million people vowing to abstain from drinking!
Then the good times rolled, for a short while anyway. Irish Whiskey, in particular, Dublin whiskey, had gained a reputation as the finest whiskey in the world, so much so that Scottish Distillers Company opened up a distillery in Dublin.
But it didn't last long after the 1916 Easter Rising, followed the war of independence and then the Civil war. Between 1919-1923 sales of whiskey plummeted, Ireland could no longer rely on exports to the British Empire and when prohibition took hold in America most distilleries found themselves with little or no foreign market.
When prohibition finally ended in 1933, the American palate had acquired a taste for bootlegged Scotch and so allowed Scotch whisky to blaze a trail throughout North America and also the British Empire.
Irish distilleries were falling like houses of cards and this continued until the 1960’s when Powers, Jameson and Cork Distillers merged in an effort to stop the decline and a new distillery was constructed behind the Old Midleton Distillery in County Cork
The below brands may be purchased from our outlets in Capt.a.Caruana
