Monday will mark the culmination of a £30 million investment and many years of planning when the first ‘new make’ spirit emerges from the stills immersed in the thick granite walls of Crumlin Road Gaol.
Some 28 years after the ‘The Crum’ closed as a prison, a combination of US private investment and government support has created the McConnell’s distillery and visitor experience in the former ‘A-wing’.
The visitor experience has been open to the public for two weeks, but the distillery is now ready to commence production as the largest Irish whiskey-making operation seen in Belfast since the late 1930s.
The concept of a distillery in the Victorian-era gaol dates back to 2010, but the project gained significant traction in 2016 when a small group of US investors became involved in the Belfast Distillery Company.
The company is now owned by Belfast Investors LLC, an investment vehicle chaired by 84-year-old American James Ammeen.
It has already successfully revived Belfast’s 250-year-old McConnell’s Irish Whisky brand, exporting it into more than 40 countries.
The distillery marks the next major milestone in their plans.
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The business may be backed by international money, but two of the key figures central to getting the project off the ground are much closer to home.
Carnmoney native Graeme Millar is overseeing the industrial side of the operation.
He joined the company in early 2023 after spending the previous eight years working at the highly regarded Echlinville Distillery on the Ards Peninsula.
When fully operational, the McConnell’s Distillery will be capable of producing 500,000 litres of pure alcohol (LPA) per year, the equivalent of more than four million bottles of the company’s signature five-year blend.
That isn’t the initial plan however.
Once the first spirit emerges from the stills early next week, Belfast Distillery Company plan to retain around one-third for its own signature single malt Irish whiskey products, which will be ready for the market in 2029.
Another one-third of the spirit produced will go into long-term maturation storage, while the remainder will be offered to third-party whiskey blenders.
The distillery is set to become one of the biggest whiskey operations in the north, with a team of eight new distillers working around the clock under Graeme Millar and distillery operations manager, Barry Mageean.
“We have hired a team of eight who we are training,” said Graeme.
“None of them have previous experience, so it’s great for Belfast that we’re training this team of new distillers.
“For both of us, it’s a real privilege being able to train folk and give them these skills.”
Another man with strong local connections is overseeing the entire project.
A former pupil of St Malachy’s College, located just over the prison walls, Glengormley native John Kelly was recruited as chief executive of Belfast Distillery Company in 2021.
Recalling his school days, he joked that the Glengormley boys at St Malachy’s were classed as ‘culchies’
“But my family are from the Antrim Road originally until we moved,” he said.
“I went to school just over the prison wall and 30 years later I’m here and part of the team that’s bringing distilling back to Belfast.”
With a 30-year career behind him in the drinks industry, including six years spent in Dubai, he cherishes the opportunity of returning to his roots.
“This has been a great opportunity to come back and do something important for the industry,” he said.
“But also do something important for the community in north and west Belfast.”
The distillery, which has already created 34 new jobs in north Belfast, is aiming to attract 100,000 visitors per year.
Alongside the major distilling operation embedded inside the prison walls and the tours of the prison wing, which recount the story of the McConnell family, the McConnell’s Distillery features a shop, café, a bar, cocktail suite and a number of function rooms, which will cater for corporate and private functions.
The total investment of £30m in the venture includes 9,000 barrels of spirit the Belfast Distillery Company has stored at John Teeling’s Great Northern Distillery in Dundalk.
The Belfast distiller plans to store the new make spirit it produces in north Belfast at a maturation warehouse in Co Down.
Getting to this point hasn’t been easy.
“It has been three years, and a real labour of love getting to where we are now,” said John Kelly.
Praising the vision of the distillery’s international backers, who have put around $20m into the north Belfast project, he said: “This place was derelict.
“A-wing had inches of pigeon poo on the floor. It hadn’t been touched since 1996.
“But they saw the opportunity of a grade-A heritage listed building and putting a distillery into that.
“I like to think it’s a great example of public and private investment coming together.”
