Kilbeggan Distillery facts for kids
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| Location | Kilbeggan |
|---|---|
| Owner | Beam Suntory (Suntory) |
| Founded | 1757 |
| Founder | Matthew MacManus |
| Status | Operating |
| No. of stills | 2 pot stills (wash still: 3,000 L, spirit still: 1,800 L) |
| Mothballed | 1957, reopened 2007 |
| Kilbeggan Distillery Reserve Single Malt | |
| ABV | 40% |
| Kilbeggan Small Batch Rye | |
| ABV | 43% |
The Kilbeggan Distillery is a very old place where Irish whiskey is made. It's located in a town called Kilbeggan in County Westmeath, Ireland, right by the River Brosna. It's currently owned by a company called Beam Suntory.
This distillery is quite special because it has a long history. It first got its license to make whiskey way back in 1757! That's over 260 years ago. You can even see a copy of this old license when you visit.
Like many Irish distilleries, Kilbeggan faced tough times in the early 1900s. It even stopped making whiskey in 1957. But the license was kept safe, and the distillery was fixed up. In 2007, it started making whiskey again!
Some famous people who enjoyed whiskey from this distillery include former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and the Irish writer Myles na gCopaleen.
Contents
The History of Kilbeggan Distillery
How It All Started: Early Years
The Kilbeggan Distillery was founded in 1757 by a man named Matthew MacManus. He might have made whiskey before, but this was his official start in Kilbeggan. We don't know a lot about the very first years.
Records show that in the beginning, the distillery used a 232-gallon still. It made about 1,500 gallons of whiskey each year.
By the early 1800s, John and William Codd were running the distillery. In 1841, it was put up for sale. At that time, it had a brew house, a still house with three pot stills, and places to store grain. It also had huge amounts of turf (like peat) for fuel. This kept many local people busy cutting and bringing the turf to the distillery.
The Locke Family Takes Over
In 1843, a man named John Locke took over the distillery. Under his leadership, the distillery really grew and did well. John Locke was known for treating his workers very kindly. Both his employees and the people of Kilbeggan respected him a lot.
He even provided small houses for his staff. Workers could rent them or buy them through a special payment plan. Every winter, staff also received a wagon load of coal. The cost was slowly taken from their pay each week.
A Community Helps Out
There's a famous story from 1866 that shows how much people respected John Locke. A very important piece of equipment, the steam boiler, broke down. This meant the distillery had to stop working. John Locke couldn't afford a new one, and the distillery's future looked bad.
But the people of Kilbeggan decided to help! They all came together and bought a new boiler for him. They gave it to John Locke with a special public letter. This letter was printed in many local newspapers. It thanked him for keeping the distillery open and providing jobs. John Locke was very touched and said it was "the proudest day of my life." A special plaque about this event is still in the distillery's restaurant today.
Fire and Growth
In 1878, a fire broke out in a small room at the distillery. It spread quickly, destroying part of the front of the building. It caused about £400 worth of damage. Many gallons of new whiskey were also burned. Luckily, local townspeople quickly helped. They broke down warehouse doors and rolled thousands of whiskey barrels to safety. This saved the distillery from much worse damage.
In 1887, a writer named Alfred Barnard visited the distillery. He was researching for his book about whiskey distilleries. By then, John Locke's sons, John Edward and James Harvey, were managing the distillery. They told Barnard that their whiskey production had more than doubled in ten years. They even planned to install electric lights!
Barnard noted that the distillery was called the "Brusna Distillery" back then. It covered five acres and had about 70 workers. The distillery made 157,200 gallons of whiskey each year. It had four large pot stills. Over 2,000 barrels of whiskey were aging in the warehouses.
In 1893, the distillery became a company called John Locke & Co., Ltd. This meant it was owned by many shareholders, not just one family.
Tough Times and Closure
In the early 1900s, Kilbeggan Distillery, like many Irish whiskey makers, faced hard times. Several things caused this decline:
- Prohibition in the United States: This law stopped alcohol sales in America, a big market.
- Trade Wars: Difficulties trading with the British Empire.
- World Wars: Shipping goods became very hard during the world wars.
- Irish Government Rules: New rules limited how much whiskey could be exported.
- Competition: Blended Scotch whiskey became very popular.
- War in Ireland: The Irish War of Independence also caused problems for production.
Because of these issues, Kilbeggan had to stop making new whiskey for seven years, from 1924 to 1931. This hurt the company's money a lot. Most of the staff lost their jobs, and the distillery slowly sold off its old whiskey.
Both of John Locke's sons passed away in the 1920s. Ownership went to Locke's granddaughters. The distillery needed repairs, but there wasn't enough money to invest. Distilling started again in 1931 after Prohibition ended in the US. For a while, things got a bit better.
A Surprising New Use
In 1962, a German businessman named Karl-Heinz Möller bought the distillery. He made a lot of money by selling the whiskey that was left. He also sold a rare Mercedes Benz car that the distillery owned. Sadly, he then turned the distillery into a pig farm! He even broke thousands of old pottery jars to make a hard floor for the pigs.
Later, in 1969, the distillery was sold again. In the early 1970s, the old stills were removed and sold for scrap metal.
Kilbeggan Reopens Its Doors!
In 1982, nearly 30 years after the distillery closed, local people in Kilbeggan formed a group. They called it the Kilbeggan Preservation and Development Association. They raised money and fixed up the distillery. They reopened it to the public as a museum about whiskey making.
Then, in 1987, a new company called Cooley Distillery bought the Kilbeggan distillery's old brands. This allowed Cooley to start selling Kilbeggan and Locke's Whiskey again. Cooley also took over running the museum. They began working to make the distillery a working whiskey factory once more. It helped that every owner since 1957 had paid a small yearly fee to keep the distilling license active!
In 2007, exactly 250 years after it first opened, whiskey making started again at Kilbeggan. Descendants of the original families who ran the distillery were there to see the pot stills fired up. To honor the distillery's long history, one of the new pot stills installed was 180 years old! It came from the Old Tullamore Distillery. It's now the oldest working pot still in the world making whiskey.
By 2010, Kilbeggan was fully working again. It had all the equipment needed to make whiskey from start to finish.
Kilbeggan Distillery Today
Today, the distillery is known simply as Kilbeggan Distillery. It has a restaurant called The Pantry Restaurant. There's also a 19th-century waterwheel that has been fixed and works again. The distillery can also be powered by a steam engine, which is still in working order but not used often. This engine was put in so the distillery could keep running even when the river water was low.
Before Kilbeggan started making its own whiskey again, the Kilbeggan and Locke's whiskey brands were made at the Cooley Distillery. They were then brought to Kilbeggan to age in a 200-year-old stone warehouse. Since the distillery reopened, the new whiskey made on-site has been old enough to sell since about 2014.
Since reopening, the distillery has launched a special whiskey called Kilbeggan Small Batch Rye. This is the first whiskey to be completely made and aged at the distillery since it was restored. It's made using a mix of malt, barley, and about 30% rye grain. Using rye was common in Irish distilleries in the 1800s, but it's rare now.
In 2009, the distillery even released small sample packs of its "new make spirit." This is whiskey that hasn't aged long enough yet. In Ireland, whiskey must be aged for at least three years before it can legally be called "whiskey."
The distillery's visitor center was nominated for an award in Whisky Magazine in 2008. It was recognized as a great place for visitors to learn about whiskey.
Images for kids
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View of the distillery from the 1900s
