Cooley

In 1994 Ireland's Competition Authority rejected an offer to buy Cooley from Irish Distillers, which had said it would close the business and raze the distillery.^2,11,12 That year Cooley was too short of money to distil, until a $1.6 million deal with Heaven Hill, which bought stock to sell in the US, saved it.^12,13 Teeling started the stills again in 1995.¹¹

Beam Inc. completed its purchase of Cooley on 17 January 2012.^3,12,14 The deal included Cooley's malt and grain distilleries in Dundalk and Kilbeggan, its maturing stock, and its brands.^3,12,14 Cooley had sold most of its whiskey for supermarkets' own labels, but in 2012 Beam decided to keep its whiskey for its own brands.^7,15 Beam still planned to send about half of that year's stock to other firms.^7,15 Suntory bought Beam on 30 April 2014, and Beam became its subsidiary Beam Suntory.^3,5,6

Cooley has no maltings of its own and buys malt from a specialist maltster.¹³ Its water comes from the river that runs down from the Slieve na gCloc mountains beside the distillery.¹ Master blender Noel Sweeney said Cooley lacked know-how in triple distillation and its first distillers were Scottish; managing director David Hynes said three runs would have made it too light.^1,3,4 Its 3 column stills make grain spirit from maize, which Hynes said gave flavour to blend with Cooley's own malt.^1,3,4 Malt spirit from malted barley is made in pot stills, with one spirit still for the second run.^1,4 It also uses peated barley for Connemara, a peated single malt.^3,7,16 Whisky Magazine reported that a slow run and upward-angled pipes atop the stills, which send vapour back to distil again, gave a very sweet spirit.⁴

Sources

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