A whiskey writer turns distiller on the Munster Blackwater.

Blackwater Distillery makes gin, vodka, poitín and Irish whisky in Ballyduff Upper, a village on the River Blackwater in West Waterford. Its founder is Peter Mulryan, whom the company describes as a former television producer who wrote several books about whiskey; Whisky Magazine called him an outspoken author and distiller in 2022. The company’s website lists him as founder and chief executive and Caroline Senior as founder and chief operating officer.

The founding date depends on the source. The company says it was established in 2014, and Waterford’s Local Enterprise Office has said it supported the start-up with mentoring and a grant that year; the business news site Fora gave the founding year as 2012 in December 2017. The first distillery was in Cappoquin, also in West Waterford. In a blog post dated March 2015, the company said it had begun distilling in February and that the Minister of State Ann Phelan officially opened the distillery on Friday 27 March; the Local Enterprise Office likewise dates the opening, and the release of Blackwater No 5 gin, to early 2015.

Gin paid the early bills. Fora reported in December 2017 that the range included Blackwater No 5, a London dry gin; Woulfe’s Irish vodka; Boyle’s gin, made for the supermarket chain Aldi; and a limited-edition gin infused with Barry’s Tea, released that November. The same report said the company was moving to a purpose-built micro-distillery with a visitor area in Ballyduff and planned to start making whiskey. Whisky Magazine gives 2018 as the year the Ballyduff distillery opened. The company says the building is a converted 1950s hardware store.

Whisky without the “e”, and a label that says what is inside.

Blackwater’s identity is built as much on argument as on artwork, and the arguments show up on the label. The first is a spelling. In an October 2014 blog post titled “Vexatious ‘E’”, the company explained why it writes whisky rather than the usual Irish whiskey: it argues that both spellings were once common in Ireland, that Cork distillers long kept the shorter form, and that dropping the “e” marked it apart from the multinationals. Its website uses the shorter spelling throughout.

The second is about what a label is allowed to say. In December 2016 the company published “Blather & Twaddle: How to Read a Label”, a satirical guide to the words on Irish spirits bottles. It scored phrases such as “small batch”, “hand distilled”, “distilled in Ireland” and “craft” for how little they tell a buyer, warned that a place name used as a brand is often not where the product is made, and said a company could call itself a distillery without owning one. It admitted to using “small batch” itself, for batches of about 300 litres.

The third is about grain. Blackwater argues that pot still Irish whiskey was historically made from a mixed mash of malt, barley and other grains such as oats, wheat and rye, and it has publicly criticised the 2014 rules that define the style today; Whisky Magazine reported in 2022 that those rules were under review after criticism from producers including Mulryan. On its website the company says it uses 100 percent Irish barley, oats, wheat and rye, ferments slowly, double distils, and sends its new make to Wexford to mature in wood for at least three years. Its website lists the grain bill of each current whisky, and one current release is billed by the company as a “non-compliant” pot still.

Design and documentation.

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 manifesto in a box, and a poitín made with Killowen.

The first whiskies made at Ballyduff arrived as a statement. In December 2022 Whisky Magazine reported the release of Dirtgrain Irish Whiskey, the distillery’s first whisky range, as the Manifesto release: four whiskies, each named by a mash bill number and inspired by recipes from 1838, 1893, 1908 and 1915, mixing barley, malt, oats, wheat and rye. They were packed as four 200ml bottles in a numbered box with a 64-page hardback book by Mulryan, in an initial run of 1,000 boxes. “100 years ago Irish whisky was made from a mixed mash bill of oats, barley, wheat and rye,” Mulryan told the magazine.

The distillery called the release a “statement of intent”, the magazine reported, meant to define what pot still Irish whiskey should be, and Mulryan argued that grain rather than long cask ageing drove the flavour of early Irish whiskey. Instead of a single bottle, the set put four grain bills side by side with a book to read alongside them. The company’s current whiskies include a pot still called Oaty McOatface and a heritage recipe named Clashmore 1824, each listed on its website with its grain bill.

The distillery also works with others. In October 2022 the company described A Dó, Irish for “two”, as a poitín made jointly with Killowen of County Down, a collaboration across the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland; Blackwater sourced an old landrace barley for it. The company says the first spirit it ever distilled was a poitín.

For a design guide, Blackwater Distillery shows how a small producer can make transparency its look — a dropped letter, grain bills on the label and a box that comes with its own reading. Compare Waterford Distillery, Mark Reynier’s terroir whisky maker in a former Guinness brewery, and Killowen, its poitín partner in County Down. For this guide we use river black, barley gold and oat with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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