Sliabh Liag: Is It Ireland's Finest Craft Distillery?

The Irish distilling renaissance is one of the great success stories of recent years, with Irish whiskey, gin and vodka now successfully competing with the very best in the world.

One company that really stands out from the crowd, however, is Donegal’s Sliabh Liag Distillers, home of the wonderful An Dúlamán Irish Maritime Gin and The Silkie Irish Whiskey.

Tucked away in Carrick, near Donegal’s rugged Atlantic coast, Sliabh Liag is one of the most exciting artisan distilleries to emerge in aeons. It is extraordinary, for a start, that it is the first legal distillery in the county of Donegal in over 175 years. But it is the superb distilling that is at the heart of Sliabh Liag’s success, with the award-winning An Dúlamán Irish Maritime Gin and The Silkie Irish Whiskey. These unique spirits take their inspiration from both southwest Donegal’s rugged landscape and its long-ago distilling traditions. It makes a great story!

“Donegal’s distilling heritage is massive, and almost exclusively illicit,” James Doherty, Sliabh Liag’s founder, laughs. “In the early nineteenth century, there were five times more stills being seized by the police in Donegal than in any other county. Parts of Inishowen declared independence from the Catholic Church when they were told to stop distilling. And when the redcoats came to close down the illegal distilling here in Sliabh Liag, the locals set fire to the bridge onto the peninsula.”

BRINGER OF JOY

Sliabh Liag’s first distillery, where it produces the brilliantly presented and packaged An Dúlamán, opened in Carrick in 2017. Plans are also in place for a second distillery in Ardara, which will produce traditional pot still and single malt Irish whiskeys.

“For me this really is a generational thing,” Doherty says. “We’re trying to build something special that will still be here in 200 years time. We’re hoping it will have some kind of transformational affect on the area, with a little eco-system of businesses building off it. Distilling is the kind of industry that can become an integral part of a community.”

Born to Irish parents, Doherty grew up in Surrey in England. His heart, however, was never far from Ireland’s west coast. This abiding sense of place is integral to Sliabh Liag – both from a visual and a taste perspective. It is something that James Doherty is clearly passionate about.

“Southwest Donegal is a world-class wilderness, and it’s challenging,” Doherty explains. “So we’re capturing that, and putting it into a bottle. An Dúlamán is truly a love letter to the west coast. It captures the wild Atlantic, and the brilliant seaweed that clings to these rocks. Visually it’s incredibly rich, because we’ve taken a Book of Kells look and stripped it back into a very minimalist bottle presentation. It also takes inspirations from the dark bottles found on the Armada ships that were wrecked off this coast.”

The first gin to be distilled in Donegal, An Dúlamán includes five varieties of seaweed harvested in the local area, as well as six other botanicals, combining to create a remarkably well-rounded flavour. It is a magnificent gin.

“I’ve always holidayed in Donegal,” James says. “One year I was on Muckross Head, picking dillisk seaweed with my wife Moira and my aunt. Moira asked me if anyone had ever done anything with seaweed in alcohol. So I thought about it, and realised that gin was the way to go.”

Moira Doherty has taken on the role of head distiller of An Dúlamán, producing the unique gin in a 500-litre, hand-beaten copper still – which they lovingly refer to as Méabh. As Doherty notes, the name can be fittingly translated to both ‘she who intoxicates’ and ‘bringer of joy’.
ROMANTIC ROGUE

Sliabh Liag Distillers have also released the Legendary Silkie Irish Whiskey, a sourced, blended whiskey with a gorgeous sweet taste and a gentle finish. But big plans are afoot! The next exciting chapter in Sliabh Liag’s journey is the opening of their new distillery, just up the road in Ardara, where they’ll produce a variety of Irish whiskeys. If all goes well, the distillery should be in production by Christmas 2020.

“We’re going to produce traditional pot still and single malt Irish whiskeys in a style that would have been true of the west of Ireland at the turn of the century,” Doherty says. “If you think about the Irish whiskeys today, they’re all quite sweet and easy – a taste that’s more likely to come from these big, city-based distilleries. In my grandfather’s poitín recipe, they used peat fires to dry the barley – which gave it a smoky taste. So we’ll produce triple distilled Irish whiskeys that are quite profoundly peaty. It will be a new experience for a lot of people in Ireland, who don’t usually associate Irish whiskey with that flavour profile.”

His grandfather’s poitín recipe also serves as the inspiration for one of Sliabh Liag’s upcoming products: Donegal’s first legal straight poitín.

“Both of my grandfathers played a role in this illicit distilling culture as poitín men,” he says with a smile. “There’s a kind of romantic rogue notion about it. We’ll be using my family’s authentic Donegal recipe, and we can’t wait to see people’s response to that.”

With these exciting new products on the way, and eager markets for An Dúlamán in every continent around the world, the future looks bright for Sliabh Liag. So how does Doherty celebrate the success?

“An Dúlamán straight over ice is perfect,” Doherty says. “But, I’m a ‘70s kids, so an evening with An Dúlamán and bitter lemon is hard to beat too!”