Ardara - Sliab Liag Distillers

The distillery has formed an exclusive club of cask owners, the Seanchaí. Seanchaí (pronounced shana-key) means "keeper of an oral tradition" and Whiskey lovers can now become one of these storytellers and keepers themselves by purchasing one of 600 exclusive Seanchaí casks. The distillery uses only first-filled Bourbon or Sherry casks and, after filling, stamps the cask lid with the owner's name and membership number. Each cask contains about 190 litres of raw spirit and will be bottled at 63% vol, the first of which will be in January 2022. After at least five years of storage, about 350 bottles will then be released.

While waiting for the first bottling, Ardara's operators, Sliabh Liag Distillers, are producing the Silkie, a blend of double and triple distilled Single Malts, Irish Grain Whiskeys and a touch of peated Malt.

The Legendary Dark Silkie is a smoky Blend consisting of triple distilled, peated and sherry cask matured Single Malts.

The third in the group and also the smokiest blend of the series is the Midnight Silkie. It contains four triple-distilled Single Malts and one triple-distilled peated Single Malt, which are matured in Sherry, Bourbon, Red Wine and Stout casks as well as fresh oak.

The Blend collection is inspired by the Irish seal mythical creatures, the Silkies, who transform into humans when they come ashore. One of these Silkie women, beautiful in her human form, is also featured on the label of the bottles.

The distillery also produces An Dúlamán Irish Maritime Gin. A total of eleven botanicals are used, of which six are conventional herbs and five are locally harvested seaweed to capture the 'Draíocht na Farraige', the magic of the sea. Moira Dohery, the ‘Banríon an Gin’ (Gin queen) distills in the 500-litre Gin still called Meabh at a low ABV and a narrow temperature band because of the delicate seaweed.

In 2019, Ardara Distillery released a special bottling of their Gin, An Dúlamán Santa Ana Armada Strength Gin, which is a limited edition. Ireland's first Navy Strength Gin is bottled at 57% vol and aged in Rioja casks. This Gin was named after La Duquesa Santa Ana, an imposing Andalusian ship that sank off Loughro's Mor, Ardara, in 1588.

The Gin, produced in small batches, is bottled by hand and also handwritten with batch and bottle numbers. For bottling, the distillery has chosen a dark 0.5 litre bottle, reminiscent of the bottles found on the Donegal coast during the sinking of the Spanish Armanada.

The distillery can produce 500,000 litres of Whiskey per year, both Single Malt and traditional Pot Still Whiskey.

The aspect of sustainability played a major role in the planning of Ardara. For example, the "All grains in" initiative focuses on reducing waste and energy.

James Doherty and his wife Moira founded the distillery together with the help of a crowdfunding campaign. In doing so, they also revived Donegal's Whiskey heritage, where Whiskey is being distilled legally for the first time in almost 200 years.

Sliabh Liag Distillers received planning permission in 2019, construction of the distillery began in October 2020, and by 2022 the first cask could be filled in Ardara.

The first location of Sliab Liag Distillers in Carrick, where among other things the An Dúlamán Gin was produced, is no longer a distillery. Instead, it is used as a bottling and administration centre.