Cooley Distillery

Coo­ley Dis­tillery is the only inde­pen­dent, Irish-owned whiskey dis­tillery in Ire­land, con­verted in 1987 from an older indus­trial potato ethanol plant by John Teel­ing. The Dis­tillery is located on the Coo­ley Penin­sula in County Louth on Ireland’s east­ern coast.

The dis­tillery uses only the finest Irish bar­ley and has its own spring water source com­ing from the Sli­abh na Gloch river high up in the Coo­ley mountains.

The dis­tillery pro­duces Kil­beg­gan and Lockes whiskeys, as well as Con­nemara sin­gle malt, Ireland’s only peated whiskey, Tyr­con­nell sin­gle malt and Greenore, Ireland’s old­est sin­gle grain whiskey. Other prod­ucts include Michael Collins sin­gle malt, and a Michael Collins blended version.

What makes Cooley’s whiskey dis­tillery dis­tinc­tive is their use of small cop­per pot stills with very large necks. These cause the spir­its to take 50 per­cent longer to pass through, and the dis­tillers believe that the result is a more refined prod­uct. In addi­tion, many Coo­ley brand whiskeys are dis­tilled only twice as opposed to the more com­mon Irish method of dis­till­ing the spir­its three times. This gives Cooley’s prod­ucts much more fla­vor than most Irish whiskeys. The whiskeys are matured in the 200 year old gran­ite ware­houses of Kil­beg­gan Dis­tillery located in County West­meath, some 60 miles away.

Prod­ucts

• Tyr­con­nell
• Greenore (sin­gle grain)
• Kil­beg­gan (blended)
• Locke’s (blended)
• Millar’s (blended)
• Con­nemara (peated)
• Inishowen (peated)