Inaugural Navan Whiskey Festival creates a taste for more!

Four days of drams and tales from distilleries

Navan's loss has clearly been Drogheda's gain as the Boann Distillery at Lagavooreen on the Meath side of the Louth town could have been in the Meath county town had things been different.

In a fireside chat in Bermingham's Pub on Ludlow Street as part of the inaugural Navan Whiskey Festival, Boann founder Pat Cooney of Kilmessan revealed that he was trying to purchase the old Spicer's Bakery at Athlumney, Navan, from the receiver, at the time the Cooneys were setting up their new enterprise, having sold Tipperary Water.

But the receiver couldn't produce the title deeds, and there was a six month delay. During this period of financial recession, Pat's friend, Pat McCabe from Ardee was also getting into bother with his Toyota car sales business outside Drogheda, and suggested to Pat that he buy that premises for his distillery. And so the project moved up the Boyne.

Ireland supplied most of the whiskey the world up to the 1880s, when there were 88 distilleries in the country, Pat explained to the intimate gathering in Bermingham's. Prohibiton in America, and the later economic war with Britain, meant that the huge American and British empire markets were lost, and by the 1980s, there was just the one major firm – Irish Distillers.

Pat's passion was pot still whiskey, and and with a combined wealth of experience, including 40 years in the Irish drinks industry building up the Gleeson Group from a small independent bottler to a company with a turnover in excess of €300 million per annum, the Cooney family were ready to take on a new project. It had always been a family dream to craft and distill their very own Irish whiskey. Their specially designed and distinctive nano-copper pot stills and fine oak cask cellars, ensuring a whiskey of distinct character with a real sense of place. That was a decade ago, and the Cooneys have since built up a successful brand and mix of products, with a visitor centre planned for the Drogheda distillery, slated to be open by next Easter.

An apple brandy is planned to utilise the cider apples in the orchard at Ringlestown, and new whiskeys are constantly being developed.

The inaugural Navan Whiskey Festival, organised by Paddy Stapleton and Eoin McGlew of the Bermingham's based Navan Whiskey Club, ran for four days.

John Teeling spoke about 'A Life in Whiskey'; Bermingham's saw 'Whiskey and Waves with Grace O'Malley' and 'The Kingdom of Cocktails – Mixing Single Pot Whiskey with Dingle Distilery' in The Central. In Jackal, 'Cask and Cork with Glendalough Irish Whiskey' took place, followed by 'Single Pot Whiskey – The Past, Present and Future' with Boann Distillery. The festival concluded with Pat Cooney's Fireside Chat in Bermingham's.