Unlike Redacted Whiskey, which was founded for the craic on a hangover, Boann Distillery is the very serious life's ambition of the Cooney family, a clan with over 50 years in the Irish drinks trade and a dream of leading a renaissance in single pot still Irish whiskey.
Sitting on Platin Road just outside Drogheda in County Meath, Boann is the first working distillery in the area in over 160 years (Drogheda once had 18 of them, with the last shutting its stills in the 1850s). It's named after the Irish goddess Boann, who, according to legend, created the River Boyne by walking the wrong way around a sacred well... sure we've all been there.
Boann began distilling on 13th December 2019, under the watchful eye of head distiller Michael Walsh who at 29 was the youngest head distiller in Ireland.
The Cooney Family
Boann is a proper family affair. Founded in 2016 by Patrick and Marie Cooney alongside their five children:Sally-Anne, Celestine, Peter, Paddy and James. The Cooneys built and sold the Gleeson Group (think Tipperary mineral water, Finches, cider, cream liqueur) before turning their attention to whiskey. Pat had always wanted a distillery of his own, and after the sale he picked a site that used to be a fancy car showroom that didn't survive the Celtic Tiger collapse. Marble floors, full-height windows, three Italian-made copper pot stills sitting where the showroom Audis used to live. It's a beautiful spot.
Being independent and family-owned means the Cooneys answer to no one but each other allowing them to experiment freely with mash bills, casks and finishes that the bigger distilleries simply wouldn't risk.
Single Pot Still
Single pot still is the quintessential Irish whiskey style, made from a mash of malted and unmalted barley, triple distilled in copper pot stills, and historically the dominant spirit of Ireland before the category's near-collapse in the 20th century. Boann is one of a handful of distilleries spearheading its modern revival, and their core single pot still mashbill (40% malt, 55% raw barley, 3% oats, 2% rye) hits all the Irish Whiskey GI requirements while bringing back grains the big players had quietly dropped.
Their stills are custom-built by Green Engineering in Italy and feature nano-copper technology, extra copper surface area in the lyne arms for cleaner, more refined spirit. Three pot stills (10,000L, 7,500L and 5,000L) handle the malt and pot still production, with a smaller Bennett still doing duty for their Silks Gin.
Mash Bills, Cask Programme & Boyne Valley Water
The Cooneys are obsessive about provenance: every grain of barley is from local farmers, every drop of water from their own Boyne Valley well, and the cask programme is genuinely one of the most experimental in Ireland. Their wood store includes ex-bourbon, Pedro Ximénez (some from a 60-year solera in Málaga), Oloroso, Madeira, Marsala, Moscatel, Sauternes, NEOC (New Era of Oak: shaved and re-toasted Bordeaux barriques), rum, Armagnac and Chardonnay casks. Some of those PX butts are even made from chestnut rather than oak a freedom Irish whiskey rules permit but Scotch rules don't.
In 2020 they teamed up with whiskey historian Fionnán O'Connor on a vintage mash bill project, distilling 10 lost Irish recipes from the 19th and 20th centuries a piece of work some are calling the most important research ever undertaken on single pot still whiskey.
Naggins by Redacted
When the chance came to bottle a 5 year old single cask of Boann single pot still, we jumped at it. Boann is, in our opinion, one of the most exciting and transparent distilleries operating in Ireland today proof that the new wave of Irish whiskey isn't just hype, it's substance. Their commitment to mash bill diversity, local sourcing and proper single pot still tradition is exactly the kind of thing we want to celebrate at Redacted Whiskey.
So we did what we do best: bottled it as a single cask in a 200ml naggin, just for the craic. A small format, a big personality, and a chance to put a piece of Boyne Valley pot still in your back pocket for not a lot of money. As ever — natural colour, non-chill filtered, no messing about.
A rare drop from one of Ireland's most exciting young distilleries.
Sláinte.
