When long-time spirits executive Pat Rigney opened the Shed Distillery in Drumshanbo, Ireland in December 2014, his goal was to create one of the best gins in the world. Now, nearly a decade later,
with growing sales near and far from its rural Ireland base and awards and accolades draped over the familiar blue bottle, Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin is fulfilling Rigney’s dream.
“We established the business in 2014 with a vision to create Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin to compete with the best gins in the world,” Rigney, Managing Director and Founder of The Shed
Distillery, tells TMI. “In addition to that, we wanted to create a whiskey distillery that would compete at the highest end, which for Irish whiskey is a single pot still, which we’ve also done, and a vodka brand,
Sausage Tree, that would also compete with the best. But the primary focus is Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin.”
Gunpowder is available in more than 80 countries. In travel retail, it is listed with operators like Aer Rianta, DFS in the Americas, Dubai Duty Free, Lotte Singapore, Heinemann, Dufry, Lagardere
and Tallink amongst others.
The brand has also had particular success in the United States, Gunpowder’s biggest and most important market.
Pat Rigney opened The Shed Distillery in 2014 with the goal of turning Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin into one of the best gins in the world.
“We are thrilled to have had great success around the world, particularly with our U.S. domestic partners Palm Bay International and Marc Taub. His team have done a really wonderful job bringing us to a position of being in the top six premium gins in the United States according to Impact Databank for 2022, with a view of consolidating and improving on that position in 2023 and beyond,” says Rigney.
Outside the United States, Rigney tells TMI the other big markets for Gunpowder are Canada, continental Europe, and Ireland.
“We’re doing particularly well in Europe, Australia, New Zealand. We’ve just launched in the Philippines, which is a big gin market in a very significant way. We’re in South Africa, Nigeria.
“The target markets that we are looking at are in Latin America. Brazil would be very interesting to us. We want to start developing Mexico; we’ve just started there. So basically the whole planet eventually and that’s what we plan to get to.”
Before opening The Shed Distillery, Rigney already had a long history in the spirits industry. In the 1990s he was Executive Director of Baileys inventing the twin-bottle Sheridan’s Cream Liqueur. He then created the Boru Irish vodka brand.
His work with these brands led him on the “curious journey” to the botanicals that would one day make up Gunpowder gin.
Gunpowder gin fuses oriental botanicals with local Irish ones. The gin takes its name from Gunpowder tea, which Rigney saw on one of his trips to Asia.
The Shopping China team visiting The Shed Distillery
Travel Retail with Duty Free Global
Global Travel Retail is another key target market for Gunpowder. The brand has had success growing the brand with its strategic partner in the market: Duty Free Global.
This January, The Shed Distillery renewed Duty Free Global’s contract to represent Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin in the Global Travel Free Channel for a further six years.
Gunpowder has been a major success story in the channel since commencing in 2016, says Rigney.
“The goal at The Shed Distillery has always been to create remarkable brands that can compete, on a global scale, with the best in the world. To achieve this, we need partners with a similar mindset and aligned values. Barry and the team at Duty Free Global truly reflect the Shed style of agility and passionate dedication. The travel retail channel has been key in the growing success of Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin, which is providing employment to over 80 staff members back in Drumshanbo,” says Rigney. “We have no doubt that the proud work carried out by Duty Free Global has contributed towards the recent win of ‘Spirit Brand of the Year’ at The Wine Enthusiast’s Wine Star Awards in San Francisco. We are very proud to continue our collaboration with Duty Free Global into the future.”
Gunpowder is the number-one selling SKU in all of Irish travel retail, says Rigney, adding that the brand’s success in Ireland and around the world is down to consumer interest in the brand from its “stunning” packaging to its authentic story.
“The fact that it comes from a real place really resonates with consumers. And the brand responds really well to promotion, all the different activities and visibility around the brand. And that is why in travel retail it seems to perform particularly well, being the number one selling SKU in Irish travel retail in a very short period of time, and actually maintaining and sustaining that,” says Rigney. “There is a lot of gift-giving around our brand.”
Rigney’s goal is to continue growing the brand with new expressions, including travel retail exclusive formats.
“Our ambition is to be within the top eight to 10 premium gin brands in the world on a global basis and sustain that into the future and become a very key part of the category. And to do that we will need to continue to promote the brand, but also to innovate, particularly in travel retail, with new expressions, different packaging, new formats. We like to think we’re quite agile, also very professional with how we go about our business. And we’re very resilient.
“Duty Free Global and Barry Geoghegan has been an outstanding partnership in the travel retail space. We’re thrilled to be working with them. We’ve had great success already and I know there’s only better days to come,” says Rigney.
Ten years and beyond
Next year will be the tenth anniversary for the Shed Distillery, which was the first distillery opened in Connacht in more than 101 years, and Rigney has plans for the distillery and the gin, whiskey, and vodka to be around for years to come.
“We are coming up on a big anniversary next year, our tenth. We opened on the winter solstice, December 21, 2014. So I guess we will celebrate on the winter solstice, which in Ireland has a particularly deep meaning going back to pagan times. The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, but it’s also the beginning of light and a brighter future, so we will definitely do something special,” says Rigney.
“We’re based here as a social enterprise. This land is owned by the community. We have a 35-year lease which repeats. We’ve invested here, we employ local people. We have created a brand built around a curious mind, PJ, who happens to be me, having traveled around the world with great interest in in the industry since the early 80s with the vision to create this brand.”
The Shed Distillery is also increasing the production of its whiskey. Drumshanbo Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey has been triple distilled at the Shed Distillery using Malted Irish Barley, Un-malted Irish Barley and Irish Barra Oats. Aged in Sherry Oloroso and Kentucky Bourbon casks with no added color and no chill filtration, this 43% Single Pot Still has been distilled by its Head Distiller, Brian Taft.
“We’ve doubled our production this year. We’ve doubled it again for the end of next year. But we are very much focused in that special single pot still space in terms of quality, premiumness, very much like our Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin. So that’s the area we want to play.
“The ambition is to really create something that will be here for years and years to come that will continue to excite consumers 100 years from now the way that we’ve excited consumers this far, and that’s something that I’m very committed to, and to create that environment so that we’re always surprising and delighting our customers.”
