About 10 years ago I had the pleasure to spend a weekend in Dublin. There was a guy giving us a brief history of Irish Whiskey. Apparently once worlds most renowned whiskey and preferred suppliers of the British Kingdom.

But in the late 19th and early 20th century some unfortunate events led to the almost complete demise of Irish Whiskey. First the irish thought they need to seek independence from britain. While that had worked out for the country, it didn’t went so well for their distilleries. As their main customers had been the britains, that was no longer the case. In addition, blowing up distilleries during the war with them was a common and effectful practice.

Their second biggest customers were the United States. Unfortunately they just announce the prohibition and practically vanished as customers too. That was the death to most irish distilleries.

The Kilbeggan distillery continued until 1953 to produce Whisky but eventually had to give in as well. But the local community managed to preserve the license and also most parts of the equipment. Finally in 1983 a local family took up the challenge to bring the tradition of that distillery back to live. By 2010 they won several prices for their Whiskeys.