A little local colourless

There's more to our hard-to-shake reputation as the "drinking Irish" than a common capacity to consume countless pints of beer…

There's more to our hard-to-shake reputation as the "drinking Irish" than a common capacity to consume countless pints of beer and only fall over when the bar is removed from behind us. The massive international success of our wide range of alcoholic beverages is also a factor - a common response to the statement "I'm Irish" is either "Guinness!" (pronounced wrongly but with a self-congratulatory grin) or "Like the whiskey" (pronounced smugly with a self-congratulatory grin). Whiskey, gin, stout, lager, liqueur - there's an Irish version of just about every type of alcohol doing well somewhere in the world. With one exception - until recently there's been no Irish vodka. This isn't immediately surprising. Vodka is not exactly a traditional Irish drink; the heritage of the clear firewater is more Dostoevsky and borscht than Peig Sayers and potatoes. Yet Irish people consume more than 550,000 cases of vodka each year, so a home market already exists as do optimum manufacturing conditions - good water and good grain. So it's no wonder Dave Phelan and Pat Rigney think they're on to a winner with their new home-crafted vodka, Boru, which arrived on the home market a couple of weeks ago.

The pair are hardly newcomers to the spirit world themselves, as both are former directors of R & A Bailey, a company in which they both gained extensive experience in developing new products. Rigney was the brain behind Sheridans liqueur, which is now worth more than £20 million, while Phelan was the originator and product leader on the new Bailey's whiskey. The manner in which the pair went about launching their vodka on the world is typical of the innovative but intelligent way they have gone about the whole creation of the brand. Together with the creative team at O'Leary PR, they decided to play on the preconception that vodka is only a Russian product. Bright red dossiers, bound with black tape and marked Top Secret were sent out in place of normal invitations to a big bash at the Odeon Bar. Guests were commanded to "appear relaxed and jocular and do not permit your loyalty to be swayed by the superior quality of this new vodka, Boru". The resulting product launch ("Operation: Lots of Bottle") was one of the largest seen in Dublin - more than 1,200 people downed more than 6,000 shots of vodka in the space of a few hours. The finishing touch arrived the next day when a box containing an eye mask, pain-killers, breath fresheners and filter coffee was sent out with a hand written note saying simply "Hope you enjoyed the launch, Pat and Dave".

It was a big leap from the usual methods of publicising a new brand, but then it was an equally large leap for Rigney and Phelan to set up their own business with a completely new product. "I suppose we were relatively key players in Bailey's," agrees Phelan, "Pat was there for nine years while I was with them eight. We had invested a lot of ourselves into the company and we were very proud of our work there. But this was something we've talked about doing for a very long time, and right now, the timing is as good as it'll ever be." He goes on to explain that increasingly the consumer is focused on the product rather than the image, or in layman's terms that the average punter is becoming a bit of a connoisseur. This is a perfect state of affairs for Phelan and Rigney's new vodka, Boru. Leaving aside the hype that seems to accompany most alcoholic beverages these days (one more "oak-matured" or "beechwood-aged" and I'll scream), Boru is genuinely aimed at the quality end of the vodka market. It is quadruple-distilled while most of its competitors are only triple distilled and, uniquely, it is filtered through 10 feet of Atlantic Irish oak - both processes, Rigney and Phelan claim, give the product greatly improved purity. In addition, there is a source of spring water at the Carbery Distillers in Ballineen, Co Cork which apparently imparts a cleaner taste to Boru. Overall, the pair claim their vodka is "the best in the business; a clean, crisp and cool liquid". When Rigney and Phelan took the leap out of the corporate world and into the entrepreneurial one (Rigney in April, Phelan in June of this year), they knew exactly what they wanted. Research into vodka production in Russia, the USA, Poland and even France made them even more determined to create what they call a "hand-crafted" spirit. "At the moment all the multinationals are looking to see how they can take things out of their product to increase profit margins, while the important thing to us right now is working out how we can increase the quality of our product," explains Phelan.

"Small is beautiful" is another of their maxims. Their search for somebody who could manufacture the vodka in small batches brought them to the door of Carbery Distillers, a large farmer's co-op already renowned for making straight alcohol. After Phelan and Rigney had worked together with designer Gillian Murphy to come up with the packaging (nifty frosted glass bottle with fairly slick black and silver labelling) and the name (Brian Boru's philosophy was one of "innovation, passion and commitment, a natural fit with Boru vodka" apparently), Terra Manufacturing in Bailieboro, Co Cavan won the contract for bottling. However, if the manufacturing emphasis is small scale and personal, their expansion plans are not. On home turf, Phelan says the publicans are "very excited by the look of it in the pub and we've priced it competitively for them". Independent off-licences have been equally enthusiastic, particularly as the Irish vodka is priced at £11.99, the exact price of the main competitor (Smirnoff holds 75 per cent of the vodka market in Ireland) and Boru is listed in both Tescos and Dunnes Stores supermarkets. Internationally, the response has been equally positive with Aer Rianta on board, a shipment going out to the US next week and good connections in the UK. Already, there is talk of an expansion into the whiskey and gin markets.

READ MORE

"Our reputation within Bailey's has definitely helped us. We've been talking to all the key people involved in the drinks industry." If the early signs are anything to go by, Boru may well be another success for the drinking Irish, so why did nobody come up with the idea of a premium-branded Irish vodka before? "I suppose nobody else saw the gap in the market," says Phelan, a touch embarrassed. "After all, when Geoff Read came up with the idea of bottling water nobody believed it would work. Who knows, maybe Boru will be the next Ballygowan?"