*Irish Oak barrels which are used by Burren Distillers.
US President Donald Trump announcing to lift tariffs on Irish whiskey couldn’t have come at a better time for a Clare distillery.
During the presentation of The Amgen Irish Open trophy to Shane Lowry in Doonbeg on Sunday, President Trump in his address announced that he was to remove tariffs on Irish whiskey.
Huge cheers and a round of applause followed the whiskey declaration. He said the matter had been brought before him by both Taoiseach Micheál Martin (FF) and Lowry over the weekend. “I want to mention one thing. Taoiseach and I talked about it and Shane talked about it and everyone has been bugging me saying ‘would you do me a favour? It’s so unfair what’s going on. Could you possibly take the tariffs off of Irish whiskey?’
“And I said on behalf of the United States of America, I am going to take the tariffs off Irish whiskey,” Trump remarked.
Speaking in the media centre on Sunday night, Lowry quipped, “Irish Distillers better be sending me a cheque soon”.
Kilmihil native Eoin Ó Catháin who is Director of the Irish Whiskey Association said the sector is “delighted” with Trump’s announcement. “The US is our biggest market, it represents thousands of jobs, millions in investments and it has been under pressure, I suppose, over the last year and a bit because of that tariff. We’re delighted to see it removed. We’ll continue to work with all of our colleagues in the US, in Brussels, here in Dublin to ensure this full tariff liberalisation will take place”.
He added the association would “like to see a return to the zero-for-zero trading arrangement for all of our drinks exports”.
For Burren Distillers Ltd “the timing of the announcement couldn’t be better,” company director Gerard O’Neill stated. The Ballyvaughan based enterprise “is currently in talks with a US distributer and the removal of the tariff is a positive for Irish whiskey exports to America”. He added, “It is good timing, removing any impediment to doing business is good, tariffs are an impediment to business”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, O’Neill said, “No tariffs are good, without tariffs you’re keeping down costs, that has to be beneficial to the whole industry, every Irish distiller exporting to America benefits from this”. He admitted that their impact will be “quite small because we’re into small production and volume” compared with the heavy-hitters of Jameson.
Burren Distillers produced their first whiskey barrels in 2019. O’Neill is currently joined in the venture by Karen Connolle from Ballyvaughan, a qualified distiller and Ennistymon’s Derek O’Dwyer who is the business consultant.
Targeting the “higher end premium market”, the removal of tariffs is hoped to assist Burren Distillers at increasing sales in the US. “Because the tariff had been removed on Scottish whiskey it gave them an unfair advantage, Trump has recognised that and has addressed the imbalance”.
O’Neill continued, “we are not trying to compete with the Jamesons of this world. We have an artisan product, it is more organic and we are using an old-style system. Our product is unique, we’re producing our ageing whiskey in Irish oak barrels, all the other producers are using American oak barrels. We stay true Sean Gael whiskey which makes it more authentic”.
