The Great Northern Distillery will be up and running by January.
That’s according to new owner John Teeling, who bought the former Great Northern Brewery site from Diageo last year.
The former Cooley Distillery boss plans to spend €35m over four years to transform the former Harp Lager brewery into one of the biggest in the country.
Speaking to The Dundalk Leader this week, Teeling said he hoped to have construction completed at the site by December, with the hope of being operational early in the New Year.
He revealed that three copper kettles will be adapted into pot stills, which will allow the company to build a grain and pot still distillery in the same still room.
The full capacity of the distillery will be three million cases.
The distillery will be operational 24 hours a day from Monday to Friday and is expected to employ between 25-30 people.
Its produce will mainly be sold to third parties, with the plan being to distill grain whiskeys, pot still whiskeys and single malts for both the national and international markets.
He also hinted that he may look at building a visitor centre at the existing Carrick Road entrance.
Teeling’s Irish Whiskey Company will only be using half of the 13 acre site with 6.8 acres of it already leased to Cellulac, who will create 30 new jobs in Dundalk for the sustainable production of lactic acid from second generation (2G) feedstocks.
