more new distilleries

[JohnM]

Someone counted 14 new Irish distilleries in the pipeline recently. Anyone hear anything about the one planned for Wicklow aimed at the Japanese market? American group I think.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

An Irish Distillery being set up by Americans for the Japanese market ... now I'm confused

[Pudge72]

An Irish Distillery being set up by Americans for the Japanese market ... now I'm confused

Is an American distillery group setting up the distillery as another market to send their ex-bourbon barrels to? Just a thought, for what it's worth.

[Fionnán]

Zoltan and i had a talk a while back about the water in wicklow being riddled with iron and the hard water being a deterant for distilleries even in the heyday of the pot still empire... hopefully these guys know that before they plop a distillery there for the scenery of the place. any thoughts, Z, or are you happily roaring across the 66 by now...

[IainB]

I'd say there's a little more to it than that. Certainly a lot of the wicklow rivers wouldn't have huge volumes or water, while the biggest flowing into the sea in wicklow, the avonmore, avoca etc. system would for a long time have carried metal elements from the various mines along the route. On the other hand the source of the dargle is only about 1km from the source of the life which has supplied many drinks industries over the years. The slaney also rises in the wicklow mountains and as far as I'm aware there has been whiskey distilled in enniscorthy. My guess would be that aside from the water quality part of the reason may have been that, despite it's proximity to dublin, much of wicklow has always been sparsely populated and fairly inaccessible due to the terrain. There would only have been 3 sizeable towns along the east coast, bray, wicklow, and arklow and with the coastal marshes (the murrough) and the issues with the avonmore etc. there would not be much in terms of suitable sites.