Cooley Distillery

Founded in 1987 by John Teeling who converted a potato alcohol plant into a whiskey distillery, the Cooley Distillery is located along the Cooley Peninsula near the border of Northern Ireland.

In 2011 the distillery was purchased by whiskey and drinks giant Beam, which in turn was acquired by Suntory Holdings in 2014.

The Cooley Distillery produces single malt whiskey in pot stills, and grain whiskey in patent column stills. Cooley has a production capacity annually of 650,000 litres of malt whiskey and 2.6million litres of grain whiskey.

All Whiskey from Cooley matures in ex-Bourbon casks, apart from their special finished whiskeys such as Tyrconnell Port, or their Madeira or Sherry finishes, such as the new Connemara Single Malt Sherry Finish.

Cooley has both traditional pot stills and column stills, favoring a double distillation method, with up to 12,000 ex-Bourbon casks being filled each year.

The Cooley Distillery itself has no visitor centre. If you want to know more about the the history of Kilbeggan and the other Cooley labels, visit the Kilbeggan Distillery Experience in Kilbeggan.

John Teeling and the Cooley Distillery played a huge role in the resurgence of Irish whiskey. If it wasn’t for John’s foresight in laying down as much whiskey as he did, we may not have had sufficient supply to meet the growing demand for quality, mature Irish whiskey.