Lord Mountcharles to set up distillery in Slane

IrishWhiskeyCha

The problem in getting investment for a distillery is the long term investment. An investment in a whiskey distillery will not begin to show proper financial results for at least 10 years and the majority of "real" investors are not interested in such long term investments. As anything you sell for the first few years will only cover running costs, if your lucky. If you look at Cooley, in reality it took them over 20years before it showed any decent return on investment. How many investors are willing to slog that long. Remember you still have to successfully market you whiskey, and if you get that wrong it is one expensive mistake. And it is because of these factors it is not easy to get investment.

rubadub

Brockagh wrote: »

Glenfiddich or Glenlivet also have a tiny still that they got special permission to use. More a tourist thing or a demonstration.

Probably is. I remember hearing some winemaker(s) who was able to sell his stuff without duty as it was a tourist attraction. I think one may have been in galway, one was definitely in the UK and customs or the police discovered loads of wine kits in his bins, he was just making homebrew wine with kits and flogging it to the tourists, far higher output than his vineyard could have handled.

Its a shame its not legal here, in some countries where it is legal to distil without a licence they just limit the volume of your still, I think in Italy your still can be no bigger than 5L.

Homedistillers will often add oak direct to the bottle so it does age in storage. I think this would be a very clever idea for a start up distillery.

you can see oak chips & small barrels here
http://www.brewhaus.com/Oak-Barrels-C101.aspx

Some lovely mini stills here
http://www.highland-spirit.com/acatalog/Small_Distilling_Units.html

syklops

rubadub wrote: »

Probably is. I remember hearing some winemaker(s) who was able to sell his stuff without duty as it was a tourist attraction. I think one may have been in galway, one was definitely in the UK and customs or the police discovered loads of wine kits in his bins, he was just making homebrew wine with kits and flogging it to the tourists, far higher output than his vineyard could have handled.

Its a shame its not legal here, in some countries where it is legal to distil without a licence they just limit the volume of your still, I think in Italy your still can be no bigger than 5L.

Homedistillers will often add oak direct to the bottle so it does age in storage. I think this would be a very clever idea for a start up distillery.

you can see oak chips & small barrels here
http://www.brewhaus.com/Oak-Barrels-C101.aspx

Some lovely mini stills here
http://www.highland-spirit.com/acatalog/Small_Distilling_Units.html

A friend of mine makes his own moonshine(he is in the US), he filters it through charcoal to give it a smoky flavour and he can come up with some really quite smooth and drinkable single-malt-esque drinks. I'd love to give it a go myself. Obviously you can't call it whiskey, as it must be aged for 3 years before you can call it that, but even so.

Condatis

Where do the Clontarf people get their whiskey?

I don't think that they distill themselves.

Brockagh

rubadub wrote: »

Probably is. I remember hearing some winemaker(s) who was able to sell his stuff without duty as it was a tourist attraction. I think one may have been in galway, one was definitely in the UK and customs or the police discovered loads of wine kits in his bins, he was just making homebrew wine with kits and flogging it to the tourists, far higher output than his vineyard could have handled.

Its a shame its not legal here, in some countries where it is legal to distil without a licence they just limit the volume of your still, I think in Italy your still can be no bigger than 5L.

Homedistillers will often add oak direct to the bottle so it does age in storage. I think this would be a very clever idea for a start up distillery.

you can see oak chips & small barrels here
http://www.brewhaus.com/Oak-Barrels-C101.aspx

Some lovely mini stills here
http://www.highland-spirit.com/acatalog/Small_Distilling_Units.html

You wouldn't be able to call it whiskey if you put wood chips in the bottle. But you could sell it as something, of course.

Brockagh

Condatis wrote: »

Where do the Clontarf people get their whiskey?

I don't think that they distill themselves.

Clontarf used to source from Cooley, but now it's Bushmills, I think.

rubadub

syklops wrote: »

Obviously you can't call it whiskey, as it must be aged for 3 years before you can call it that, but even so.

Brockagh wrote: »

You wouldn't be able to call it whiskey if you put wood chips in the bottle.

Is it that you can't call it "Whiskey" at all, or just not specifically "Irish Whiskey".

here is the law, which specifically keeps saying "irish whiskey",
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1980/en/act/pub/0033/print.html

It also states it must be in wooden casks, so even if the oaked bottles were 3 years old they would not pass.

The highly rated book "making pure corn whiskey" shows how to make a whiskey with no maturing at all.

By adding oak chips you can have a much higher ratio of whiskey to oak than you get in a barrel.

Brockagh

Actually, maybe you have something there. Doesn't say anything about wood chips in that law. In Scotland you can't do it, I believe. John Glasier matured whisky with an oak cross in the barrell, and the SWA came down hard on him. Maybe the law was changed there after that, I'm not sure.

In Scotland it has to be oak casks, but I dont' think there's anything to say you can't use different wood in Ireland - not that you'd want to.

johnnyskeleton

Brockagh wrote: »

Actually, maybe you have something there. Doesn't say anything about wood chips in that law. In Scotland you can't do it, I believe. John Glasier matured whisky with an oak cross in the barrell, and the SWA came down hard on him. Maybe the law was changed there after that, I'm not sure.

In Scotland it has to be oak casks, but I dont' think there's anything to say you can't use different wood in Ireland - not that you'd want to.

Has anyone ever tried it? I would imagine that different woods would give a different flavour to the whiskey.