DISTILLERY
The external aspect of the new Roe & Co Urban Distillery situated on the site of the former Guinness Power Station, on the street frontage of James Street. It sits directly opposite Diageo’s other agship, the Guinness St James Gate Brewery.
Unveiling the Urban The Roe and Co Urban Distillery – Diageo’s impressive new project in Dublin
Jose Cuervo in 2014.
ByGerryMcGovern
Back in the 1800s the central Dublin Liberties area was at the heart of Irish whiskey (or indeed any whisky!) worldwide, with the ‘Big Four’ family-run distilleries of John Jameson & Son, William Jameson & Co, John Power & Son, and nally George Roe & Co. At their peak, the distilleries in Dublin would grow to become the largest in the world, with a combined output of almost 10 million gallons per annum, the largest of which, George Roe’s Thomas Street Distillery, had an output exceeding two million gallons per annum. These distilleries’ volumes were far in excess of the combined Scotch whisky industry at the time. Diageo have taken that historical link with George Roe & Co, and ‘re- imagined’ the brand for the modern era, producing the blended whiskey that is now called Roe & Co. Even though the
Ten years ago there were only four distilleries opera- tional in Ireland; the Cooley Distillery in Co. Louth, the Irish Distiller’s Midleton Distillery in Co. Cork, The Old Bushmills Distillery in Co. Antrim, and the Kilbeggan Distillery in Co. Westmeath. There were none in Dublin.
H owever, in 2018 well over 10 million cases of Irish whiskey were sold worldwide. Recent gures from the Distilled Spirits Council show that nearly 4.7 million nine-litre cases of Irish whis- key were sold in the US alone in 2018, generating $1.01 billion in revenues for distillers. This is 9.4 per cent increase on the previous year; in 2003 combined sales were just $74 million. As a consequence of this interest and growth, the last ten years has seen a veritable explosion in distillery
development to the point where there are now 25 up and working as of June 2019, with ten existing, or proposed, in Dublin. The latest of the capital’s distilleries is the €25 million investment in the Roe & Co Urban Distillery, by international drinks giant Diageo, which previously had its toe in Irish whiskey for a period when it purchased Old Bushmills in the 90s. As part of a much larger restruc- turing it sold the Old Bushmills distillery and brand to the Mexican company
22 ● BREWER AND DISTILLER INTERNATIONAL I october 2019
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