It’ll all be over by Christmas, we cried! Well we were wrong. We tried so very hard to make it happen, to get the first gin out in 2014 but in the end there was just too much red tape. Anyway December is awash with new distilleries, Highbank Orchards launched last weekend, JP Rigney cuts the ribbon next weekend – a third opening would have been a mite obscene.

So instead of being ‘positively the last new distillery of 2014’, we will instead be ‘totally the first new distillery of 2015.’ Unless that is you know better.

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2014 has been a bumper year for distilling on this island. Glendalough Distillery in Newtownmountkennedy and Short Cross in Downpatrick set the pace earlier in the year, Tullamore Dew came back to life in the autumn and there’s a whole slew of others either in planning or being built. 2015 then promises to the the biggest year ever, there’s Teeling x 2, Dublin Whiskey Company, Alltech Mark II, Walsh Whiskey Distillery, Glosna Distillery as well as plants in Belfast, Derry, Waterford city and of course county (that’s us). There are numerous more some of which will happen, others that will crash and burn. That is life. I mean this first graphic isn’t that old . . .

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While this from September 2014 is already out of date ….

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There is now an Irish Whiskey Association and Whiskey Live in Dublin this year was the busiest ever. Early next year there will be a GI protecting Irish Whisk(e)y (more on that GI again), while poteen is next up for special treatment.

Here at Blackwater our plan was to have a fully functioning distillery by the end of 2014, that we have achieved. 2015 sees us on the road to being a grain to glass micro-distillery, and if this year is anything to go by we will miss every single deadline but somehow get there in the end. I hope you can come along for the journey. Thank you for your patience in 2014 and if you pre-bought a bottle of our very fine gin, batch number 1 will be with you early in the New Year.