A farming family turns its barley into whiskey.

Clonakilty Distillery is the work of the Scully family, who farm on the coast of West Cork near Clonakilty. The company says the family has farmed the same land for nine successive generations, and the Southern Star placed the farm at Ardfield. The Irish Farmers Journal reported in March 2019 that Michael Scully, a Cork dairy farmer and the company’s chief executive, and Helen Scully were its founders, and that the board included Denis O’Flynn, a former managing director of Pernod Ricard UK.

The distillery itself is in the town. The Southern Star reported that the building had been intended as a bank, was then occupied by a school, and was converted into a distillery by the local builders Cahalane Bros over about fifteen months. Tánaiste Simon Coveney opened it in March 2019, with a visitor centre, a gin school and a bistro called The Whale’s Tail. Coveney told the paper the distillery would be “another strong tourism driver for the innovative town,” and Michael Scully said local West Cork people had been used for the work whenever possible.

From the start the plan was to grow the grain at home. Both papers reported in 2019 that the distillery would make a triple-distilled single pot still whiskey from grain grown on the Scully farm; the company now says its barley comes from the family farm or from local farmers in County Cork.

From the farm to the warehouse on the cliff.

Clonakilty matures its whiskey away from the town, in what it calls its Atlantic Ocean Warehouse. In a May 2022 release, published in full by the Cork whiskey blog Corkbilly, the company described the warehouse as about 200 feet above the ocean and exposed to Atlantic winds, and said the spirit is cut to casking strength with water from a well on the site. The same release marked the point at which its first spirit, distilled in long-necked copper pot stills from local raw barley and malt, legally became Irish whiskey after three years in cask, and named Paul Corbett as head distiller.

That release set the new spirit alongside an existing range of cask finishes — European oak, Port, Bordeaux and Cognac. In November 2021 The Spirits Business reported the launch of Galley Head, a single malt finished in re-shaved, re-toasted wine casks and Bordeaux red wine casks, named after the Galley Head lighthouse, built in 1875 on the headland outside Clonakilty. The same report said the distillery, which had joined the Irish whiskey sector in 2019, was exporting to markets including the UK, Germany, Japan and the United States.

The milestone came in 2024. In a September 2024 release the company called its Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey the first whiskey fully distilled and matured by the distillery, aged in ex-bourbon, amontillado and oloroso sherry casks and bottled at 46%, with Oisin Mulcahy named as head distiller. The release describes fermentations of more than 100 hours, triple distillation in copper pot stills and a reduction to bottling strength over as long as two weeks. In 2022 the company had also invited buyers to reserve casks of the new spirit through a Cask Keepers Club.

Irish whiskey and its new distilleries.

The seven brands in this group are all Irish distilleries: Killowen, Great Northern, Lough Gill, Clonakilty, Walsh Whiskey, Blackwater and Hinch. They are spread across the island rather than gathered in one district — Killowen in the Mourne Mountains and Hinch near Ballynahinch, both in County Down; Great Northern in Dundalk, County Louth, on the site of the former Harp brewery; Lough Gill in County Sligo; Clonakilty in west Cork; and Blackwater at Ballyduff in County Waterford.

Irish whiskey is a protected geographical indication. English Wikipedia notes that, under the rules set out in the 2014 technical file for Irish whiskey and checked by the Irish revenue authorities from January 2016, it must be matured for at least three years in wooden casks, and it recognises four styles: single pot still, single malt, single grain and blended. The word “single” may be used only when a whiskey is wholly distilled at one distillery.

The modern industry was rebuilt from very few distilleries. English Wikipedia records that Jameson, Powers and the Cork Distilleries Company merged as Irish Distillers in 1966, that Bushmills joined in 1972, and that Cooley Distillery was established by John Teeling in 1987; Great Northern, which Hospitality Ireland reported in August 2015 had begun distilling, was co-founded by him.

Ownership varies, and some of these names now sit inside larger drinks groups: BeverageDaily reported in November 2021 that Amber Beverage Group had acquired Walsh Whiskey, and in June 2022 that the Sazerac Company was buying Lough Gill Distillery, which Sazerac renamed Hawk’s Rock in 2025.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — who founded it, who owns it now, and where its whiskey is actually distilled, matured and bottled — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A whale, a lighthouse and a slogan.

The brand draws its names from the coast. Alongside the whiskeys, the distillery makes Minke Gin; the Southern Star reported in 2019 that it is made from locally produced whey and infused with hand-foraged coastal rock samphire. The company’s shop also lists a Minke vodka and a sloe gin. Galley Head takes its name from the lighthouse on the headland, the bistro at the distillery is called The Whale’s Tail, and the company’s own story speaks of a farm “where whales bask offshore.”

Its website frames the business as “A Rebel Spirit,” set beside the family, the farm and the sea. The single pot still release leaned on the same idea: barley grown on the family farm “perched on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean,” matured in a warehouse within sight of it.

The company has also made sustainability part of its public identity. In August 2025 Drinks Industry Ireland reported that Clonakilty Distillery had become a certified B Corporation after an assessment of its social and environmental performance, citing staff wellbeing programmes, beach cleans, a carbon-footprint review with a plan to cut emissions, reduced packaging and a wildlife meadow of native species. Michael Scully said the certification was a promise to keep improving. The company’s 2024 release described Clonakilty as a family-run distillery.

For a design guide, Clonakilty shows how a young distillery can build an identity from what is around it — a farm, a lighthouse, a whale — before it has an age statement to sell. Compare West Cork Distillers, its neighbour along the same coast, and Midleton, the County Cork home of single pot still. For this guide we use an Atlantic teal and a barley gold with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Clonakilty’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.