That’s the spirit: Teeling Whiskey Company completes its Italian job

The Teeling family is a step closer to opening Teeling Whiskey Company, the first new distillery in Dublin in 125 years. Its three enormous copper stills finally arrived this week from Italy and were installed at the factory in the Liberties.

Jack Teeling, who, along with his brother Stephen, is the driving force behind the €10 million investment, was on hand to take delivery of the copper pots, the biggest of which holds 15,000 litres and weighs five tonnes.

That's a fair-sized drop of the crathur.

Frilli Impianti, an Italian company with a long heritage of making Grappa kit, sent the stills over from Siena. "I saw those stills in Italy when they were only flat copper sheets," said Jack Teeling, a son of the legendary drinks and resources investor John.

He explained that because of the boom in Irish whiskey production, lead times on new stills can be as long as two or three years.

The worst of the construction work at the new distillery will be finished in January and the stills will be commissioned shortly afterwards. “We will be in production early in the new year,” said Teeling.

Shortly after that, it should open as a tourism attraction: "Tourism Ireland had 30 people here on Monday checking things out. We wouldn't have stuck the distillery in the centre of the city if we didn't think we'd attract a lot of visitors."

Irish whiskey, after years as a fusty old drink, is now in vogue with no shortage of multinational investors. The Teelings' old Cooley business is owned by Suntory of Japan; Jameson is owned by France's Pernod Ricard; and Jose Cuervo, the tequila giant from Mexico, recently bought Bushmills from Diageo.

The whiskey industry is hardly on the rocks.