Old Jameson Distillery

Today, I am going to talk about the Old Jameson Distillery. Some people may think that I should have done this earlier when I was writing about other things in Dublin, but it really doesn’t matter about the order of these posts as I am writing about the place or event so that people can get a real idea of what it’s like over there.

The Old Jameson Distillery is situated in Dublin near Smithfield Square. It is the original location of the distillery and, before moving from Dublin, covered more than 5 acres of land. I read that it “was like a city within a city” because of the professions that were involved with the company. There were “a Smithy, Cooperage, saw mills, engineers, carpenters, painters and coppersmiths’ shops.” (Wikipedia) The amount of water that was required for the making of whiskey was a large amount. There were two wells on the property.

When you look at the trades that were involved with the distillery, you would sometimes wonder why. Perhaps it was found to me more inexpensive to make your own barrels for the aging of the whiskey. After all, if you pay another company to make the barrels for you, you also have to give them enough money so that they can show a profit and stay in business. But, if you have enough money to be able to have the space, purchase and store the raw materials needed, and pay the coopers and carpenters, then you might want to think twice about contracting the work out. After all, you want to have the highest quality work for your product. There may have also been the possibility that the amount of barrels required by the company was too much for smaller business to handle along with the work from other companies.

The Old Jameson Distillery got to the point where there was no room left to grow in the original location. After all, in 1966, Jameson merged with The Cork Distillery Company and John Power and Son to form the Irish Distillers Group. The move brought three rivals under one umbrella. The distillery was the last distillery to close in 1971.

What happened was that the distillery reopened in a new location, the New Midleton Distillery in Cork. Most of the buildings in the old location were dismantled with the main building being kept as offices. Sometime during the 1990s there was a fire which lead to the building becoming run down. A decision was made about 15 years ago to upgrade the building and give it new life. Since completion, it has apartments, shops, restaurants, and, apparently, has a hotel. There is also a visitors’ center that describes how whiskey is made and offers samples.

John Jameson made a sound financial move when he moved from Scotland to Dublin and began to work for Bow Street Distillery the late 1790s.