I've gone professional - distilling

[eanna]

As the Liffey Brewers are probably sick of hearing about at this stage, over the last two years I've built a distillery in Rathcoole, Dublin.
I can safely say without the NHC I wouldn't have gone into this brewing-adjacent business at all, so thanks everyone for all the brewing information I've soaked up online and in person.

I'm making gin first and when cashflow improves I'll get some Oak barrels and get the Single Malt conveyor belt moving.

http://gaslampdistillery.ie/
https://www.facebook.com/GaslampDistillery/

I've been producing for a while now but just got the labels on Friday so finally coming out of stealth mode. Talking to stockists this week so it's not actually available anywhere yet.

Anyone got any distilling questions, fire away!

[Tom]

Nice one! Good luck with it all. I thought the microbrewery paperwork was a headache, I can only imagine what a balls it is for a distillery.

[eanna]

Thanks Tom. Yeah, Revenue did their very best to try and stop me from setting up but I won't start ranting about it again. They're relatively grand to deal with now, a truce of sorts has been forged.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Just processing that last statement... why would revenue want to argue you away from paying more tax? Confused.

[mick02]

Just processing that last statement... why would revenue want to argue you away from paying more tax? Confused.

Don't go there... There are dozens of professional brewers than are at risk of PTSD with that kind of statement! 

[johnrm]

@eanna - Congrats - Wishing you every success!

[mick02]

As the Liffey Brewers are probably sick of hearing about at this stage, over the last two years I've built a distillery in Rathcoole, Dublin.
I can safely say without the NHC I wouldn't have gone into this brewing-adjacent business at all, so thanks everyone for all the brewing information I've soaked up online and in person.

I'm making gin first and when cashflow improves I'll get some Oak barrels and get the Single Malt conveyor belt moving.

http://gaslampdistillery.ie/
https://www.facebook.com/GaslampDistillery/

I've been producing for a while now but just got the labels on Friday so finally coming out of stealth mode. Talking to stockists this week so it's not actually available anywhere yet.

Anyone got any distilling questions, fire away!

Best of luck Eanna. Rathcoole is just up the road from me. Are you accepting visitors? I'd love to pop in and see the setup.

[eanna]

Just processing that last statement... why would revenue want to argue you away from paying more tax? Confused.

It's a matter of incentives, the people who have to do the work don't see any gain in doing it. Also South Dublin Excise haven't had a distillery in a couple of generations, so all the knowledge of how to deal with one has to be learned from scratch. I'll leave it there on that topic.

Mick: No not taking visitors yet, the place is functional but not presentable at the moment. It wasn't an off-the-shelf kit so there's a lot of work still ongoing fixing and improving things. I'll probably arrange a day for NHC folk in the new year after I get one of Alan Kelly's new tour licences.

[Tom]

Eanna, what size, if you don't mind? You don't need to be specific if you don't want, just under or over 1800l will do as an answer. 

[eanna]

Eanna, what size, if you don't mind? You don't need to be specific if you don't want, just under or over 1800l will do as an answer. 

The legislation addresses the largest still in a distillery, my biggest is 1000L. Plenty of other distilleries across the country are using stills far smaller so they couldn't protest that one too much. Didn't have to go to court or anything about the still being under 1800L.