I think someone mentioned Tyrconnell, which I find ok, but there are some great stories surrounding the Cooley distillery itself. (John Teeling was something of a maverick businessman here, and his other zany business ventures have left investors getting plenty of thrills and spills, from his African Gold to his Pan-Andean ventures he really knows how to throw dice. He somehow created wealth when Ireland was an economic basket case, but at the end of the day he has often said that in the past decade Ireland has become so unrecognisable that all he ever needed to do was track the stockmarket and buy a few properties in Clontarf where he lives and he'd have been richer. Certainly much blood, sweat and tears went into the Cooley distillery, but alas one of their largest contracts is to merely supply the English supermarket chain Tesco with own-brand whiskey, a shame, when they really should be trying to get the value-added element of quality into their production, such as Tyrconnell and the more-bland Kilbeggan).
Anyway back to the big-name whiskey. Basically every Irish whiskey label of note has been bought up by the duopoly of Allied Domecq/Pernod Ricard and then when they merged it had huge reprecussions for both Irish and Scotch whiskies. The Allied Domecq side of this panto horse decided to concentrate on Laphroaig, Glendronach and Scapa, leaving the Irish stuff as surplus to their requirements, but as the Pernod Ricard side owns Irish Distillers, (which produces some high quality whiskey like Bushmills and Jameson, but also some good old paint-stripper that I just love: Powers Gold Label, Paddy and so forth), there was a predictable boardroom battle or two. They'll need to offload some brands but distilleries are like independent republics and I'd hate to be the marketing guru who decides to suggest that they try a "tastes like scotch" campaign to convert a few of their surplus brands.
