Your mama is so old...

Here's something interesting...

As you may be aware, Bushmill's lays claim to being the world's oldest distillery. According to Bushmill's, the town of Bushmill's was awarded the first license to distill in 1608 by King James I - and boasts ties to whiskey production as far back as the 13th century.

But according to Jack Teeling, Old Kilbeggan Distillery is about to celebrate its 250th Anniversary, making it the oldest continuously licensed distillery in the world.

Bushmills can only claim that the area around Bushmills distillery and not the distillery itself, was granted a license to distill 400 years ago next year. Bushmills distillery was actually set up after Kilbeggan distillery - I think whiskey drinkers would be interested in this so they don't get caught up in the hype.

To celebrate this significant event they are re-commencing distilling at the old Kilbeggan distillery.

Dating back to 1757, the Kilbeggan Distillery is acknowledged as the oldest physically licensed distillery in the world. In the the early 1900’s problems in Ireland and abroad (primarily the Irish War of Independence and U.S. Prohibition) brought about the demise of a number of Irish Distillers. Kilbeggan managed to hang on until 1953 when a major slump in Irish whiskey exports and resulted in the distillery ceasing operations on March 19, 1953.

The Old Kilbeggan Distillery was rescued in 1988 when Cooley Distillery bought the old distillery with the aim to maintain the working distillery as a museum and use its extensive warehouses to mature its whiskey.

We have re-commissioned one of the old stills (working with Forsyths in Scotland). It's quite different then modern stills and we can't wait to see the whiskey it will produce.
We are aiming to re-fire the still on March 19th and it will be 50 years nearly to the day that distilling stopped on site. This is a significant step in the rejuvenation of the Kilbeggan distillery and Irish whiskey in general.

Cooley is also introducing their Kilbeggan proprietary bottle into the US market for the first time. This is a huge step up in packaging and is a much better reflection of the quality of the whiskey that won "Best in Category" at the IWSC 2005 and Silver last year.

Kilbeggan was previously sold in the US in a standard stock bottle while everywhere else in the world it is sold in a bottle we designed ourselves hence our proprietary bottle. We used to send over bulk to Heaven Hill who bottled Kilbeggan in the US. Now we bottle in Ireland and ensure that the packaging for the US market is reflective of the quality of the whiskey.

Also, Cooley plans to launch the oldest bottling of whiskey matured in the Kilbeggan warehouses - Kilbeggan 15 Year Old Blend.

We have already decided on the blend and I must say it is amazing. We have gone for a top end package to help reinforce the quality of the whiskey.

Good stuff from this privately-owned distiller.

I'll let the lawyers and PR people fight over who is who is oldest, as - in the end, who gives a crap? It's what in the bottle today that counts, right?

Comments

[Colin]

Excellent, I've been looking for a fact like this for one of my friends who has proudly rabbited about the age of his home distillery [Bushmills]

Ain't one-up-man-ship great? :o)