North of Dublin city, deep in the fertile countryside of County Meath, there is a historic site dating back over 5,000 years. It includes a 62-feet-long passage leading to a central chamber adorned with megalithic art. On mornings near the winter solstice, around 21st December, a beam of sunlight travels through the passage and ultimately lights up the entire chamber. The aligned illumination lasts just 17 minutes. It is only possible to wonder at the marvel of its conception and construction.
This is Newgrange, now part of a World Heritage Site, and given the significance of its remarkable neighbour, it is not too surprising that Boann distillery, located just outside the town of Drogheda, four miles to the east, chose to call its first release Solstice. The three-year-old single pot still whiskey was part of the distillery’s inaugural distillation and was matured in a Pedro Ximénez hogshead.
Subsequent summer and winter limited editions have continued to carry the Solstice name, and as ‘traditional’ single pot still whiskeys they are at the heart of Boann’s philosophy and practice.
Drogheda was once home to no fewer than 18 distilleries, the last of which closed during the 1850s, though a whiskey bonding business existed on the site until 1968. Boann distillery restored the craft to the area when it was established during 2016. It was the brainchild of members of the Cooney family, headed by managing director Pat and children Sally-Anne, Peter, Patrick, and James. The family boasts an impressive and extensive CV in the Irish drinks industry, building up its Gleeson Group business from a small, independent bottler to a company with an annual turnover in excess of €300m, before its sale in 2012.
Pat Cooney had a longstanding desire to create his own distillery and selected a site that was formerly home to an upmarket car dealership that failed to survive the dire economic downturn that developed after Ireland’s fabled ‘Celtic tiger’ economy lost its roar in 2008–09. The extensive showroom was initially transformed into a combined brewing, distilling, and bottling operation, but the beer and cider components of the business were sold off to the Carlow Brewing Company in 2019, and the area previously dedicated to them has been repurposed as warehousing, along with a large solera system.
The distillery is equipped with three bespoke copper pot stills. manufactured in Italy by Green Engineering. According to director Sally-Ann, “These have patented inbuilt nanotechnology that exposes the spirit to six times more copper surface during the distillation process than in a purely traditional still. We also have reflux control on the lyne arms of our intermediate and spirits stills which allows us a great deal of control over the styles of spirit we produce.”
The name Boann was chosen for the venture because Boann — or Bóinn in Irish — is the mythical goddess who, according to legend, created the nearby River Boyne, while also being the goddess of poetry, fertility, and knowledge. Famously, the Battle of the Boyne was fought in July 1690, when forces of the deposed Catholic King James II were defeated by those of Protestant King William III (aka William of Orange), securing the ascendency of Protestantism in Ireland. The battle retains totemic significance for many in both Northern Ireland and the Republic.
Irish history and tradition are also important to the team at Boann, and Sally-Anne says, “Ninety per cent of what we distil is single pot still, with a few small campaigns of single malt production per year. That is mostly stock for blending, for our range of the Whistler whiskeys. Single pot still whiskey is absolutely key to what we are doing. That’s what we are specialising in. We’ve used 40 different recipes to date, not necessarily to the GI [geographical indication] definition of what can be labelled as single pot still Irish whiskey.
“Oats and rye are core to our mashbills. GI only allows maximum of five per cent ‘other’ grains beyond malted and unmalted barley, but the Irish whiskey industry is looking to raise that to 30 per cent and the case for doing so is currently being considered by the EU. We’ve laid down a lot of non-compliant spirit which we consider ‘core’ in style — oily, spicy, with icing sugar.”
The Cooney family’s passion for truly authentic single pot still Irish whiskey led them to participate in a unique experiment during December 2020 in collaboration with Irish writer and whiskey historian Fionnán O’Connor, who had unearthed a range of vintage mashbills. Ten of these — dating from the early 1800s to the mid-20th century — were selected and 2,000 litres of spirit from each was distilled. That spirit was then filled into sherry, rum, bourbon, and New Era of Oak casks — shaved and re-toasted Bordeaux wine barriques. Additionally, a Boann Vintage Mashbills Tasting Set, made up of 5cl samples of new make, was offered for sale, allowing consumers to compare and contrast for themselves.
The summer of 2024 saw Boann release its first core range, comprising a trio of single pot still whiskeys, aged for four-and-a-half years in Marsala, Madeira, and Pedro Ximénez casks, using a GI-compliant mashbill of 40 per cent malt, 55 per cent raw barley, three per cent oats, and two per cent rye.
Speaking at the time of the launch, Pat declared, “This is the beginning of a journey to bring Irish whiskey back to where it once was, to a time when Ireland dominated the world whiskey market. It is amazing to bring this project to fruition. Single pot still Irish whiskey is the quintessential Irish whiskey style and exclusive and sacred to Ireland. Our vision is to revive the heritage laid down by the lost distilleries of Ireland, distilling these historic mashbills with local ingredients and uniting the past with the future of the craft of Irish whiskey distillation by using the latest technology.”
When Boann’s first whiskey distillation took place in December 2019, the spirit was filled into nine casks — one each of NEOC (New Era of Oak Cask), PX, Armagnac, sauternes, moscatel, chardonnay, Bordeaux, rum, and marsala. Sally-Anne explains, “We have 50 different types of cask maturing, and we only fill between 65 and 70 per cent of our spirit into bourbon casks. We have used all sorts of weird and wonderful casks. My brother Peter is in charge of international sales and he sources lots of diverse and interesting casks for us, and we have lots of Spanish casks.
“We work with JL Rodriguez in southern Spain, and we did a release of whiskey made to a 100-year-old recipe and filled it into 100-year-old bodega casks that they sourced for us. We adapt our mashbills to suit the casks at times, creating the most apt flavour profiles. We tend to marry casks to build flavour profiles rather than ‘finish’ whiskeys.”
Twenty members of staff are employed at the distillery and another 65 to 70 in Clonmel, Tipperary, where the Cooney family has its bottling operation and Irish cream liqueur production facility. The cream liqueur is marketed as part of the extensive Whistler range of whiskeys, so named because of Pat’s habit of whistling while he works. The Whistler range gave Boann an important source of income in the early days of the business and continues to be extremely popular.
At present, the lineup includes a variety of cask-finished blends, a pair of triple-distilled sherry cask matured single malts, and the Trilogy Series, comprising Double Oak Blend, Beekeepers Select Irish Honey, and Blenders Select Irish Cream Liqueur — which Boann says is the first whiskey liqueur in the world to use single pot still Irish whiskey. A recent addition to the range is a Triple Oak Irish whiskey blend.
Sally-Anne notes, “By the end of this year or early next, we will have our café, bar, and visitor experience facilities in place and then we will be able to welcome members of the public to Boann. We also raised €5m to construct a new warehouse on site and to improve our bottling plant at Clonmel. The warehouse comprises four individual warehouse spaces, each of which holds 6,500 to 7,000 casks, and we are planning to build another one.”
When it comes to the spirit filling those warehouses, there is a real sense of excitement and achievement relating to ‘proper’ single pot still Irish whiskey among the Boann team. “We started a single cask programme with the Solstice name,” says Sally Anne, “most recently for Christmas 2024, and that was not GI compliant. It utilised our Vintage Mashbill No 1, dating from 1892, comprising 30 per cent malted and 60 per cent unmalted barley and 10 per cent oats, matured in an oloroso sherry hogshead for almost four years.
“We do a special release for each solstice to highlight different flavour profiles. We are now looking at making the Solstice bottlings limited editions instead of single casks as there is so much demand for them. We want to place ourselves as trailblazers.”
Sunshine and stone may only align at Newgrange for 17 minutes per solstice, but over at Boann Distillery the spotlight is firmly on making quintessential single pot still Irish whiskey in the very best traditions.
