There were live music performances, a black-tie dinner for around 100 people, five-star accommodation and chauffeur-driven Mercedes. The 10 April launch event for Midleton Very Rare Silent Distillery Collection Chapter Six, a 50-year-old, single-pot-still Irish whiskey, oozed opulence in a way that befits a product that’s yours for the small consideration of €60,000 ($68,000) a bottle.
The assembled media throng – myself included – were given the grand tour of not only the old distillery buildings at Midleton where that whiskey was distilled (now a museum to a lost age of Irish whiskey) but also the plush, airy Garden Still House, unveiled in 2012 as Irish Distillers tried fervently to keep pace with Jameson’s soaraway global success.
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Nor was there the health and safety flim-flam that usually accompanies such access and its proximity to large amounts of highly flammable alcohol. “Bring your phones with you,” we were told. “Take as many photos as you like.” This was not, however, some corporate regulatory lapse but tacit recognition that, well, the stills aren’t actually operating at the moment.
Like many across the broader whisky industry, Irish Distillers had announced in early March that it would “temporarily pause production” at Midleton, with operations due to start up again in the summer. The company assured everyone that this was a “routine, periodic review” that demonstrated its “ability to be agile with our production cycles”.
If you’re left feeling mildly dizzy by all that spin, join the club. But Pernod Ricard is hardly alone in employing tortuous language to explain its stills going silent. Over in the Scottish Highlands, Brown-Forman announced in January a “shared production model” for its Glenglassaugh and BenRiach malt distilleries, explaining the move would “involve periods of production alongside occasional silent seasons, as has been the case traditionally”.
Closer to home and only a day before that Midleton Very Rare launch event, it was revealed that William Grant & Sons was entering a phase of intermittent production at its Tullamore Dew distillery in County Offaly, taking three of the plant’s nine stills offline at different times.
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By GlobalDataThe ‘silent season’ tradition in whisk(e)y is as old as the industry itself but it tends to be quietly forgotten when sales are soaring and demand is hot – instead, the plants run pretty much 24/7 until something breaks. In other words, when so many distillers all pause or reduce production at the same time, there’s something afoot.
Nor can we blame President Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ (although the threat of it may have exerted some influence). In all cases, the decisions were taken before he signed Executive Order 14257 and implemented a slew of tariffs on pretty much everyone, penguins included.
In other words, the mood music for Irish whiskey was already turning increasingly Emo months earlier – most significantly, in the US, which accounted for about 40% of Irish whiskey exports in 2024 (Bord Bia/Irish Food Board figures).
Smaller brand owners I’ve spoken to recently have been increasingly bear-ish about the US, describing a general softening of demand over the past year, especially for products north of $50 a bottle and actively questioning the depth of their involvement in the market.
For all its magnitude, the US remains a highly complex and expensive place in which to do business, especially for smaller distillers. Why would they invest their scarce resources in such a cost-intensive destination with little prospect of imminent success?
This point is, I think, reinforced by one crucial factor: the relative immaturity of the Irish whiskey category, which can only be fully appreciated through the lens of history.
In the early to mid-1970s, when the spirits that make up that €60,000 Midleton release were filled into casks, Irish whiskey was on its knees, only saved from almost certain destruction by the creation of Irish Distillers in 1966. Never mind taking a few weeks off – in the darkest days, the stills were only operating for three months a year.
By 1978, there were only two distilleries operating on the island of Ireland: Midleton in the south and Bushmills in the north. More than half of Irish Distillers’ sales were confined to the domestic market.
Spin the clock forward to today and Jameson – even after its recent slowdown – sold 6.1m cases of whiskey in the second half of 2024, while Irish Distillers has a total of 162 warehouses full of maturing spirit at Midleton and nearby Dungournie.
For all the recent US challenges, Jameson has already, to some extent, moved on, pursuing growth opportunities in Brazil, China, Japan, Africa and India – the last of which has been transformed into one of the brand’s leading global markets in a matter of years.
Given Jameson’s continued category dominance, it’s not surprising to see these trends reflected in the Bord Bia export figures for 2024. Export receipts up 16% in Africa, 35% in Japan, 60% in mainland China, 66% in Australia – and more than doubling in India.
Of course, these markets remain dwarfed by the US but it’s a positive development for a category that has been over-dependent on one country for too long. Nor is this exclusively a Jameson or Irish Distillers story: the same small brand owners harbouring doubts about the US are also singing the praises of markets across Asia, Latin America and western Africa.
Success in these new regions is sometimes elusive, as anyone who’s had to navigate their way through Latin American paperwork will tell you. But the companies that put in the hard graft, visit the markets and break bread with their gatekeepers will reap the rewards.
In the 50 years since Midleton opened its new distillery and ushered in a fresh start for Irish whiskey, the category has enjoyed a remarkable revival but that story is far from over. Irish whiskey is still new news to people in so many markets around the world and the virtuous circle of consumer interest and supplier prioritisation should elevate it to even greater heights in the years ahead.
