Ep. 93 - Distilling Returns to Belfast In a Big Way

Transcript

Drew Hannush:
Welcome to Whiskey Lore, The Interviews. I'm your host, Drew Hannush, the Amazon bestselling author of Whiskey Lore's Travel Guide to Experiencing Irish Whiskey and also the Travel Guide to Experiencing Kentucky Bourbon. And today we're about to learn about one of the newest distilleries on the Irish Whiskey Trail, a distillery that has a familiar name, especially in relation to Belfast. I am talking about Titanic Distillers. And I'm honored today to have as my guest the distilleries head distiller, Damien Rafferty. Damien, welcome to the show.

Damien Rafferty:
Thank you, Drew. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm a big fan of your podcast.

Drew Hannush:
Well, thank you so much. And, uh, yeah, it was great actually having you, you reached out to me on LinkedIn and it's like, I had been talking a little bit, it was a little scattered when I was putting together my book on Irish whiskey, because I had heard of Titanic distillers and I tried to email directly, but I didn't get any kind of response initially. And I don't know how I bumped into the team, but sooner or later I did. And it was just after I had put the book up to be printed. And they're like, oh, you called it Titanic distillery and it's Titanic distillers. It was like, ah, so I jumped back in. I was actually able because I hadn't launched it yet to make the change and get it in there. But it's a funny story because, uh, because it really shows how the Irish whiskey industry is just like exploding right now. And it's hard to keep up with, uh, some of the new distilleries that have come along and Titanic was a perfect. example of that. So, and you guys are just now launching your tours. So it's a, it's first chance for the public to see you guys too.

Damien Rafferty:
That's right, yeah, and I think you might have to keep updating your book, version 1, 2,

Drew Hannush:
Hahaha

Damien Rafferty:
3, 4, with all these distilleries. But yes, we're just at the cusp of opening four tours. So we offer four tours, all accessible on our website. So where the distillery is located is in the historic Thompson Dock and Pump House. So any history buffs would know that... this is the last place where the Titanic rested on dry land before it set sail. So as part of the Belfast Harbor Commission's area, and Harland and Wolf would have built the dry dock to accommodate the construction of the ships. So we've been very fortunate here that we've been able to acquire the building. And as you can see behind me, it's quite a, quite a lofty building. This is the old pump house and this is where it housed the pumps that drained the dock just beside us here. So, as a tourist you'll be able to come see the dock where the Titanic was but also inside here we have managed to maintain everything that's original from 1907 when this building was completed and you can just see over my shoulder here that that's an original feature from 1907 that's still in operation today

Drew Hannush:
Wow.

Damien Rafferty:
so it's a lovely mix of history and old Belfast and new Belfast new Belfast as in we're the first distillery in Belfast in almost 90 years.

Drew Hannush:
Okay, so we go all the way back. In fact, I had to look up the exact date because the last distillery in Belfast was Royal Irish Distillers, which was 1935, I believe. And what's interesting about their story is that while the Irish whiskey industry was imploding, they were still successful, but they had deaths, as I understand, that kind of left them going, who's gonna run this thing? And so they just said, we'll just shut it down, which is an interesting... interesting story that Belfast was still pumping along on putting whiskey out and that it really was just an internal company thing that stopped it. And we think that's a good thing. And

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah,

Drew Hannush:
I think that's a good thing.

Damien Rafferty:
you'd love to have been a fly on the wall on that boardroom, wouldn't you? Just to

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
see what the mood was. Like I was just talking to one of our tour guides there recently and we were talking about this and we thought maybe, did they see the writing on the wall? Did they think, oh, there's no future? You know, we might as well just wind up quit while we're ahead. And

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
it sort of gives you an indication like that's where Irish whiskey was, you know, a profitable distillery. Yeah, they might've said, well, we've no heir to the throne, but really. they might have seen the writing on the wall. So yeah, it's kind of like gives you a different perspective on like where we've come from in those 90 years.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah, and when we think of Northern Ireland, we think of Bushmills because Bushmills was the lone wolf up there for so long. What's amazing is that Belfast being a good-sized city, that wasn't the first place that people thought of to put a distillery. It's taken a little time, little dot plots all over the map going on with all of these distilleries popping up. And then Belfast kind of sitting there as a central... Location how did the distillery come about?

Damien Rafferty:
So the Titanic distillers, we'll have to go back a few years. So one of our founders, Peter Lavery, he's known to be the first lottery millionaire in Belfast back in the 90s. He has been interested in whiskey for quite a number of years and he owned a brand called Danny Boy and in commemoration of the 100 years of the Titanic in 2011. released a titanic whiskey and he sourced those products from Cooley. So similar to the likes of Slane, they were sourcing from Cooley and then when Beam Suntory bought it over they ceased the third party selling of liquid. So Peter then tried to gather a few investors together to build a distillery and one thing led to another, it didn't quite happen. And then came across this building. So this building here was also a tourist attraction as well, tours of the dock and there was a cafe and different things and he had the vision to put a distillery in it quite a number of years ago and he's brought together a couple of other investors and between the three of them they have brought this to life and it's been a long couple of years for

Drew Hannush:
Hehehe

Damien Rafferty:
the directors to get it to this far and it's within touching distance.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah, it was kind of interesting to see whether you or McConnell's would get open first in terms of the race. They're over in the old Kremlin Road jail and

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah.

Drew Hannush:
trying to get, I can imagine, because Sarah over there has talked about the challenges that they had in terms of getting planning and getting permissions to do all of that stuff. And I would imagine you guys probably went through the same issues with this distillery.

Damien Rafferty:
Absolutely, yeah. There's not a single screw has been taken out of a wall or anything. Well, we've obviously had to attach a few things to walls, but just behind me you can see the sort of the tops of some of the vessels and you

Drew Hannush:
Mm-hmm.

Damien Rafferty:
can see the sort of the flooring. So that's like a suspended floor and there's two levels and that's still suspended above the original pump well. So there's nothing actually touching the original floors. We've had to build floating distillery is much like a structural

Drew Hannush:
Wow.

Damien Rafferty:
floating above here so

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
everything is suspended above the ground that you can see around behind me here and we actually had to get the crane here behind me recommissioned to allow us to drop in the steel and bring the tanks in and the stills and then so as you can see sort of the big wheels up here behind me that's all hand operated so yeah it's been a it's been a long time to get them the different sort of what heritage will allow you to do, what is more efficient to do around a distillery. So we might be slightly less efficient than most, but at least we've got a story to tell here.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah. So was it basically in the floating platform, was that out of necessity or was that out of kind of creative design and saying, hey, this also preserves the building?

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, I think it's a bit of both. So where we are, where I'm sitting right now in the middle, I'm sitting in the middle of the building. So we've got the distillery on this side and then on the other side, similar size building and that's the visitor center. And I think originally the planning committees wanted us to be in the other side, where it was normal floors and build a mezzanine in there and make things simple, but then they went down the harder route and

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
built a distillery on two floors here. So... Yeah, there's a lot of work going into this. And if you come to visit, you'll see even the anchors into the side of the, into the wall. One of the builders told me he spent three weeks on his hands and he's can going out the stone just to be able to get the foundations into it. So yeah, it was definitely a lot more difficult to do it this way, but the result is incredible.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah. So when you were, when you were younger, was there any, was that museum there or is this, is the museum even something that is fairly new to that area?

Damien Rafferty:
the Titanic Museum.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
I'm not actually sure on the exact opening but it's fairly fresh and I have to admit I haven't actually been into it myself. I keep meaning to go but I haven't

Drew Hannush:
Hehehehe

Damien Rafferty:
actually got. They've done a fantastic job at driving tourism to this area of Belfast and there's such heritage on this what we call the Maartime Mile. So from the city centre right out The history is just incredible. Like you've got the slipways where they have festivals now in the summer and you can actually walk along the path along the lagoon and see the ship sailing by and like at some point there it feels like you can touch the passenger ferries going past, we're

Drew Hannush:
Mm.

Damien Rafferty:
that close. So yeah but the Titanic Museum they are obviously promoting the ship and the story of the ship. But here at the distillery, we feel like that's already, that story's already been told. So what we're trying to focus on here really is the hands that built the ship. So the different, like the craft and the graft that was required by the different trades and the men and women of Belfast to really, to build this place. You know, our tagline is the blood, sweat and years. So we, it's like a nod to the toilet went on here in the ships and that at the end of a hard day's work, you know, you can have a dram to... you know, to relax. So

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
that's really where we see ourselves is, you know, we're talking about the people that built the ship, not necessarily the ship itself.

Drew Hannush:
And it's interesting, you know, again, thinking about the history of Belfast, it's in such a ideal place for shipping, yet it doesn't seem like it was until the early 20th century before the focus of making that really a shipbuilding. area because that as we were saying before 1907 I think was the date you gave. I know the White Star Line when it came in I think 1911 was when they started building these massive ships and Titanic was just one of the ships that was being built there at the time. And this is my ignorance I guess in a way of how ships are built but I mean they basically have to build them on dry land. this is the idea of the pump house is that the pump house is actually bringing the water out. Is it is there like a area and encased in area where it's kind of almost like a dam that they've dammed it up and then they can build it and then open that gate and allow the water to come in to to make it rise up.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, that's exactly it. So the ships, the White Star Lines as you said, were built up on the Titanic slipways. Well they're now called the Titanic slipways which would have been Harland and Wolfe's yards. They would have built everything except the rudders and the propellers and different things and then just slid that into the water. It would have been tugged just up the channel a little bit here. And the dry dock, like you said, it's a huge big dam. there's a case on gate that is open and it's filled with water and the ship was pulled in using cap stands and just pulled into position. And then the case on gate would have been closed and then the pumps would have been activated here to pump the water out and settle the ship on top of keel blocks so that workers can access the bottom of the ship, attach whatever they need to do, you know, do the internal fit-outs, whatever was required and then whenever it was ready. case on gate would have been opened, floated the boat and then sailed out. So that's a very simplistic way of talking about it but right here in front of me, if I turn the camera around you'll see the hydraulic accumulator which was the piece of equipment that was used to open up that 1000 ton gate. It would have used hydraulic pressure and it tires way above my head here but if you come in you'll be able to see the mechanisms of how that all operated and the tour guides go into great detail and really explain even the tour of the dry dock itself is incredible because it really gives you a sense of the scale of this place. The dry dock itself is 850 feet long

Drew Hannush:
Mm.

Damien Rafferty:
and then there was an extension piece added to the gate so it can extend out to 887 and a half feet which is quite good because I think the Titanic was 858 feet. So it just fitted in and no more. And these were the biggest dry docks in the world at the time. So absolutely monumental scale and the technology used to open and close gates and pull the ships in. It was almost like the iPhone of their day. You know, they were

Drew Hannush:
Mm.

Damien Rafferty:
really advanced technology. So.

Drew Hannush:
So how long did these docks, because we think of, and maybe this is a good reason not to associate necessarily with the ship as much as, because we know what happened to the ship and that was only a year later, but yet you have this dock here, this massive dock. How long did this stay operational as a dock?

Damien Rafferty:
I think the last shipment here was 2001. So

Drew Hannush:
Oh, okay.

Damien Rafferty:
there's been over 900 ships serviced in this dock. So it really is a testament to how well made it was. And I'm a former civil engineer, so I really appreciate the work that has gone into constructing something like this. It's incredible.

Drew Hannush:
Are the old, is the old machinery, the old pump still there or?

Damien Rafferty:
They're

Drew Hannush:
Okay.

Damien Rafferty:
still here, yes. They're just behind me in this pump well.

Drew Hannush:
Wow.

Damien Rafferty:
I've been assured that with a little bit of lubricating oil and a couple of hits with a hammer, they could start again and run.

Drew Hannush:
Ehh... Ahahahah...

Damien Rafferty:
They don't build them like they used to.

Drew Hannush:
That's true, that's true. Well, it was supposed to be the indestructible ship, the Titanic, of course, you're never supposed to say something like that.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah. What's a Janks, isn't it? Yeah.

Drew Hannush:
It is, it is. So how much do you know about Belfast's distilling history and kind of, you're from outside the area, but you're from Northern Ireland, as

Damien Rafferty:
That's right,

Drew Hannush:
I

Damien Rafferty:
yeah.

Drew Hannush:
was saying. So, I mean, we're... When you were growing up, because now you say you started as a civil engineer and now all of a sudden you're in the distilling industry, and I'm sure when you were growing up you weren't thinking, man, I'm going to be a head distiller someday because that probably wasn't really a career opportunity unless you were going to be at Bush Mills. And Bush Mills being one employer, that's a pretty hard job to get into if you're going to do it. So What was the distilling attitude back then? Was Ireland a country for beer? And really there was no focus so much on whiskey when you were growing up?

Damien Rafferty:
I suppose you're right in what you said, there was only really Bush Mills available and the likes of Jamison and Cork and where I grew up is on the border between the North and the South and Bush Mills and Jamison felt equidistant as far away from where I grew up as possible. But near Nury where I grew up is Dun Dock where the... we're great now in the distillery is situated now, used to be the Harp Brewery.

Drew Hannush:
Mm-hmm.

Damien Rafferty:
And growing up on the border, you sort of ebb and flow across the border, depending on the exchange rate where you do your grocery shopping.

Drew Hannush:
Ha

Damien Rafferty:
So

Drew Hannush:
ha

Damien Rafferty:
I

Drew Hannush:
ha.

Damien Rafferty:
remember as a family, we used to do our weekly grocery shopping in Dundalk and we'd drive past the old brewery. And to be honest, it never crossed my mind that that was a career path.

Drew Hannush:
Mmm.

Damien Rafferty:
And you know, It wasn't until later in life that I realized there's a lot of transferable skills between what I had learned and worked in and what the brewing and distilling industry was. But yeah, I suppose, just speaking from my own experience, I suppose my family weren't really big drinkers. So I suppose I didn't really have that influence on me about that it was a possible career. And when I was in school, it was around. say the early 2000s, there was a huge boom in construction in Ireland and a lot of us were all encouraged to go down that path of construction and it was almost like we were blinkered you know.

Drew Hannush:
Ha ha.

Damien Rafferty:
Our careers advice was very narrow just go into either a trade or some sort of profession in the building industry which was an awful pity because in 2010 when we graduated was the biggest crash in construction.

Drew Hannush:
Oh man.

Damien Rafferty:
It just was bad timing, I suppose.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah. So, so what drew you, what drew you into getting into the whiskey industry?

Damien Rafferty:
So that's a good lead on. So after the crash, I remember scratching around trying to get some some work. I'd recently just graduated from university and trying to get a job in engineering and I'd done a years placement with a company, a civil engineering company, which funny enough actually we built the road to Tullamore Distillery. So we built the

Drew Hannush:
Oh.

Damien Rafferty:
road going to that

Drew Hannush:
You

Damien Rafferty:
road

Drew Hannush:
did

Damien Rafferty:
that

Drew Hannush:
all those,

Damien Rafferty:
comes out of the town,

Drew Hannush:
you

Damien Rafferty:
all

Drew Hannush:
did

Damien Rafferty:
those roundabouts.

Drew Hannush:
all those roundabouts. Oh my goodness. I'm like,

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah.

Drew Hannush:
roundabout, I'm getting some practice here.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, so that's, yeah, that was my claim to fame is that we built that road. But then fast forward 2010, there was literally zero construction work happening. And there was huge emigration, I suppose, with people of my age to Australia. And I was

Drew Hannush:
Mmm.

Damien Rafferty:
one of those people. And, yeah, as I landed in Australia, it was literally they were having a boom in the mining and resources industry. So I... I worked in the mining industry for two years building railways, taking iron ore from the mine to the port. So I spent two years of my life pretty much in a similar environment to this, only a lot hotter in

Drew Hannush:
Mm, ha ha ha.

Damien Rafferty:
the big industrial practices. And then I built another motorway in the city for another two years. So I spent a total of four years in Australia. But while I was there, I used to work two weeks on, one week off. So I'd worked two weeks. on the job and then have a week to explore. I spent a lot of time travelling around the different craft beer, brew pubs and different things like that and craft distilleries that are in West Australia and that really opened my eyes to flavour because

Drew Hannush:
Mm.

Damien Rafferty:
in Ireland at the time we were pretty much squeezed by the big companies like Diageo and... Your choice was either Budweiser or Guinness. Really pretty much on the... on the taps and

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
then all of a sudden in Australia I had this exposure to so much flavour and it just enamoured me straight away and I got quite friendly with some of the local brewers and they showed me around the breweries and different things and it almost sparked something in my head like this is something that I would like to do but never thought I could. And then I decided to leave Australia and do a little bit of travelling. I found myself in Canada, in the Rockies, as a snow shoveler,

Drew Hannush:
Ha ha

Damien Rafferty:
working in

Drew Hannush:
ha.

Damien Rafferty:
a ski hill. It was the best job I ever had. He'd just turn up at 6am and shovel snow for a couple of hours and then go skiing for the rest of the day. The town, the little village was known as Fernie in British Columbia and they had a little brewery there as well. Again, I'd find myself in their tap room asking questions. What's this? How does that work? But what really drew me to everything was the ingredients and the malt. I was seeing what looked like barley and by the way I grew up on a farm where we grew barley to feed cows and I was

Drew Hannush:
Mm.

Damien Rafferty:
like they're turning barley into beer and I was like surely maybe we could do this

Drew Hannush:
Ding.

Damien Rafferty:
back in Ireland.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah, yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
So I found myself back in Ireland after that travelling. I also did quite a bit of backpacking through the states like through like Bend, Oregon and you know

Drew Hannush:
Mm.

Damien Rafferty:
That place is just incredible. You know, the beer was just phenomenal.

Drew Hannush:
I was going to say that was the beer capital of the US. It has been on and off. It fights with

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah.

Drew Hannush:
Asheville, which is where I grew up in North Carolina year after year.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, so I would find myself like say after a three or four day hike, you know, in a local brewery that's maybe only producing a couple of gallons at a time and I'd be like this is the best beer I've ever had and they're like well we're not even the best brewery in town,

Drew Hannush:
Ha ha ha!

Damien Rafferty:
but what's your secret? And they said oh we use all the local ingredients, you know, we can grow hops here, we've got you know a malt house just an hour's drive up the road and then I drove by a malt house and I thought wow, this is incredible. And the barley that they were using, in my opinion, was inferior to the barley that we would have grown in Ireland.

Drew Hannush:
Mm.

Damien Rafferty:
And I was like, this is incredible how they can get so much flavor out of what I used to think was animal feed. So, to cut a long story short, I found myself back in Ireland and working as an engineer again, but I couldn't sell. You know, I just kept thinking about, you know, malt. and beer and how it was all connected to farming. And so I led, and then I ended up, I started up Ireland's only floor maltings on my family farm.

Drew Hannush:
Okay, wow.

Damien Rafferty:
So, yeah, so I don't think a lot of people know that about me, but I had a floor maltings. It was Ireland's only malthouse, Northern Ireland's only malthouse, and then the only floor maltings in the whole island.

Drew Hannush:
I was going to say because right now a lot of people get their stuff from Minchmalt, but that's in

Damien Rafferty:
That's right.

Drew Hannush:
the Republic. Was that around when you were doing this?

Damien Rafferty:
Oh yeah, yeah, well like

Drew Hannush:
Okay.

Damien Rafferty:
Minch have been around for a long, long time. But I obviously did a bit of research. I went to speak to distillers and brewers and I asked them, you know, where does your malt come from? And like the brewers would say, oh, we get it from Belgium, we get it from Germany. And I said, well, why don't you get it from Ireland? They're like, well, there isn't a variety. There's like the likes of Minch produce huge quantities, but it's all like for the likes of Guinness and Heineken and Irish distillers. So it's all huge volumes. but not enough focus on the quality and the flavor. So again, the light bulb went off. I thought, well,

Drew Hannush:
Hehehe

Damien Rafferty:
maybe I can do something here because I'd seen it in small scale in the States. So I took myself off back over to the States and I spent some time with Hudson Valley Malt, Dennis Neisel from Hudson Valley Malt and spent some time with him and he taught me everything he knew about how to make floor malt in New York State. And I went to visit like Valley Malt in Massachusetts different places and then I came back and started up the Malthouse on the family farm. But it was small scale, it was only one ton batches. So like, to sort of give you the scale, my biggest customer is Cologne or was Cologne. So like,

Drew Hannush:
Okay. Ha ha ha.

Damien Rafferty:
that gives you a sense of the scale.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
Like it wasn't huge, it was so small.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah, good neighbor to have though.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, so I met with Brendan before he even had the distillery and he was so passionate about using local ingredients and local produce. So that gave me the impetus to keep going with it. But then it was hard work. I suppose a lot of people were not really suspicious of it, but couldn't afford to pay the premium prices

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
that I was hoping to charge. So I found there was a struggle really. So I had to seek work. like daytime job so I got a job as a junior brewer in what have been the Pierce Lyons brewery and

Drew Hannush:
Okay.

Damien Rafferty:
yeah

Drew Hannush:
Did you,

Damien Rafferty:
from.

Drew Hannush:
were you, were you getting over monkey shoulder? Did you, did you get that, did you understand what that, that syndrome is all about?

Damien Rafferty:
Oh yeah, I knew it on every other condition, lower back syndrome.

Drew Hannush:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, because it's hard work floor malting. I can see now why it's literally a team job, not a one man operation. So...

Drew Hannush:
Yeah, oh yeah. You think of those big malting floors that they used to have and some places still have. I got to turn my, I got to turn some barley when I was at a boomer distillery in Isla, but I only

Damien Rafferty:
Mm-hmm.

Drew Hannush:
did it for like two minutes. So,

Damien Rafferty:
That was enough.

Drew Hannush:
yeah, that was enough, that was enough.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, so I had to seek gainful employment. So I got the job as a junior brewer. And well, before Pierce Lyons was Pierce Lyons brewery, it was Stationworks brewery

Drew Hannush:
Okay.

Damien Rafferty:
and it was bought by Alltech. So I started as a junior brewer. In the evenings and the weekends, I would have continued to make them all. And so I... I was at Pierce Linings for three and a half years and I progressed from junior right the way up to the head brewer. While in my time there and we went from a 50 hectalitre manual setup to a 100 hectalitre fully automated setup. It was like the investment from Alltech was incredible. It was the Rolls Royce of brew kits, a Steinacker

Drew Hannush:
Wow.

Damien Rafferty:
brew kit.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
So I learned a lot. I learned on the manual system and then progressed into the automated system and it was a great learning curve. All the while I was still making mould in my spare time, which I didn't really have much of.

Drew Hannush:
Well, how big was the operation? Have you been to the Kentucky Altech Brewery?

Damien Rafferty:
No, I didn't. We talked about a brewery exchange program at one point,

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
but COVID landed and that put a lot of plans in the bin really. I

Drew Hannush:
Yeah. Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
would have loved to have gone to Kentucky to town branch and I guess duelling barrels and

Drew Hannush:
Yeah. Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
all the setups that they have and there's one in Pikeville as well I think.

Drew Hannush:
Uh, maybe.

Damien Rafferty:
You

Drew Hannush:
I know

Damien Rafferty:
know,

Drew Hannush:
that

Damien Rafferty:
as

Drew Hannush:
there

Damien Rafferty:
it's...

Drew Hannush:
was another, uh, there was another facility and I think somebody else started it and then they bought it. Maybe I'm not sure how that went, but, uh, Eastern Kentucky is still a little bit of a mystery to me.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah,

Drew Hannush:
I haven't wondered.

Damien Rafferty:
one of the guys actually came over to Dundalk to help us out for a while. I must catch up with him again actually, it would be great to see him again, maybe even fly over and get him to show me around for a change.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
So yeah, I'd love to get back over to, or I'd love to get over to Kentucky.

Drew Hannush:
Well, it's nice to see that they had the brewing facilities as well here in, or there in Ireland, because it's just interesting when you go to the Kentucky facility and you basically get a brewery tour, then you get a distillery tour back to back, and to see how the two work together. And this is part of what I find interesting. There are two distilleries here in the United States that I can think of that have Samuel Adams Brewers that went to work for them. One is Chattanooga and the other one is New Riff in Cincinnati and Getting to taste their their beer as it is you know fermenting and getting ready and we hear about sour mash whiskey here and you taste sour mash and they have to Apologize if you taste it to say, you know, it's gonna be a little sour now But it'll you know will distill it and then when I tasted what they had at Chattanooga It's like man. I could drink this just the way it is and it opened my Mind to the fact that having somebody with a brewing background Coming in to work as a distiller is a real advantage.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, I think Geroad Cahill from Slane, I think he said, brewers make great distillers, but not the other way around. I might be

Drew Hannush:
I

Damien Rafferty:
paraphrasing

Drew Hannush:
can see that,

Damien Rafferty:
him

Drew Hannush:
yes.

Damien Rafferty:
a bit there. But yeah, working at Pierce Lions was a great learning curve. And really it taught me the value of like every aspect in brewing and then plus also they had the distillery down in Dublin and during COVID there was a bit of... because they were effectively a huge visitor center, they didn't have any visitors. So some of their staff would come up and help us out in the brewery. And that really opened my eyes to distilling as well. So I got to work alongside those guys and I was really impressed. And it really changed my focus on my career trajectory. So I think speaking to them guys, I realized that in Ireland, we've got the... technical file and the geographical indicator that we own Irish whiskey. Nobody else in the world can produce Irish whiskey and there's just the three ingredients that can all be produced here on the island. And that really being an environmentalist at heart that really made me want to make a move into distilling, whereas in brewing you have to import your hops and different things like that. So I think that's what really gave me the impetus to to seek the career in distilling as well.

Drew Hannush:
So it's interesting that in Kentucky now they have Moonshine University and they can churn out distillers and get people going on a path right off the bat. And so What was Ireland like at that time? If you have interest in distilling, was there any way to get an education or did you basically have to find a job that would allow you to step in and apprentice under somebody else?

Damien Rafferty:
Well I suppose in Ireland we can access the Institute of Brewing Distilling which is a UK based or it's worldwide really and you can go down that route of education and then Harriet Watt as well over in Edinburgh. There's also a couple of other like IT Carlo I think are doing bits and pieces of brewing things but I suppose personally I thought I'd I had enough of sitting in the classroom. I wanted to get practical hands-on experience. And starting at the bottom was really the best way, in my opinion, for myself. I picked it up pretty quickly. I remember two weeks after I started in the brewery, one of their brewers left and they

Drew Hannush:
Mmm.

Damien Rafferty:
were shorthanded. And they're like, okay, we need you in the brewhouse now. Like, you need

Drew Hannush:
Ha

Damien Rafferty:
to learn

Drew Hannush:
ha

Damien Rafferty:
how

Drew Hannush:
ha.

Damien Rafferty:
to double brew today. So it was like trial by fire. And that's how I learned. So I am supplementing my hands-on experience with technical qualifications as well, like through the Institute of Braering Distilling. So I have a qualification already in Malting and I'm working on my diploma in Distilling and eventually Master Distiller.

Drew Hannush:
Nice. So in Ireland, master distiller, or even through the UK, master distiller is not something that you can call yourself unless you have gotten the, that's really interesting because in the US, if you open up a distillery and you've run something through the still, you can call yourself a master distiller if you want to. Ha

Damien Rafferty:
Hmm.

Drew Hannush:
ha ha.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, I suppose I was telling the scientists, your guides one day, they said to me, are you the master distiller? I was like, no, don't confuse the only distiller as the master distiller, you know.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
So, yeah, I suppose you probably could call yourself that, but I wouldn't feel comfortable knowing that I haven't, you know, passed those exams when you've got the likes of Gro Kjell or Colin Megan up in Bush Mills, who have gone through, you know, the schooling and the... Those exams are really hard so I wouldn't want to take away any sort of thunder from anybody You know, I'm I'm not gonna call myself anything until I've earned it

Drew Hannush:
Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at and people will call me a historian and I say I'm not a historian. I love history and I am a seeker of truth and I'm a storyteller, but I don't call myself a historian because I don't have a degree from anywhere. And I feel like that's a title that's reserved for people who have... put some cash behind their education and that time behind the books and getting the instructions. So I get that and it's like, it's always been kind of a curious thing. Brian Watts at Great Northern, I said, what's your title? And he said, production director. And I think in his direct, in his feeling was that it's. He didn't see himself as really a master distiller. He saw himself as the guy that was running the place and that was keeping the wheels churning. So it's interesting to see how people take those titles. We have this thing in the U.S. I think where everybody wants to come up with a creative title. And so it's kind of a rite of passage when you start up to come up with a name that is impressive. So people take you seriously. So I think that's part of it.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, I can understand it but again to Brian Watts, like rest in peace, he's an example of someone who, there's nobody who could beat him on technical knowledge in distilling but yet has that humble outlook that I'm not a master until I've earned it.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So where did you go from Pierce Lions?

Damien Rafferty:
So yes after Pierce Lions, so I live just outside Belfast here and there was a new distillery opened up nearby called Hinch Distillery, so I applied for a position there because not only was it a 12 minute drive from my house I also wanted to get involved in the distilling industry and I suppose I was probably employed there in the strength of my brewing history and Yeah, it's a great facility up there, great team. I learned a lot from them and I hope they learned some from me too. So

Drew Hannush:
Hmm

Damien Rafferty:
it felt like it was a good trifecta of people there. So there were people who were strong in distilling, people who were strong in gin and then myself strong in ingredients and brewing. So between the three of us, we were able to really, I suppose, shape the production output there.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah, I think what's... I was going to say, I think what's great is for the visitor who wants to come to the area, you can park yourself in Belfast and now soon you'll have two distilleries in Belfast to be able to go visit. Hinch, I drove to it. It's really, really close to get there as well. You get three other distilleries all within a short drive there as well. So it's really nice to see this all of a sudden. It's more of a tourist kind of a situation.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, I think, so County Down, the county that we're all in, I think County Down is becoming nearly the distilling capital of Ireland.

Drew Hannush:
Mm.

Damien Rafferty:
You know, we've got a few distilleries popping up and like I said Copeland and Cologne, Hench, Shortcross, Eklaville, we're all in the same county. So it's, I think we're becoming a bit of a destination within a destination.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So how did you find out about the Titanic job?

Damien Rafferty:
I met a guy who I knew from Nury and he asked me if I'd be interested in coming down to Titanic and have a look around and when I seen the place I was just completely blown away by the scale of the Tridoc, the position where it is, the vision that they had and also the flexibility. To be honest I actually thought of it. wanted me to be just a distiller. I didn't realise I was been asked if I wanted to be the head distiller. So

Drew Hannush:
Да.

Damien Rafferty:
I felt like a bit of imposter almost but no it's been a it's the opportunity that really attracted me here. The opportunity to have a bit of fun not fun but also been serious about the the production of the the spirit. So I suppose I see whiskey, if you can imagine like it's an exam and you've got 100 marks, say 60 marks are already set aside for the cask and then your 40 marks are for your spurt production. Well, I want to ensure that I'm getting 100% of my 40 marks on this side of production. So I've got the sort of almost free rein to explore with different types of malt, different techniques in brewing, different types of yeast, different times, different temperatures, just to really just tweak. here there and everywhere to see where we can really produce a complex wash. You know that like you say if you want to drink it on its own you can and then you'll just just add flavor wherever we can you know not just buy the cheapest malt or the the cheapest yeast or the yeast that'll ferment the quickest you know just really put the put the blood sweat and ears into really you know finding a really good complex spirit here and Yeah, that's the challenge that I'm really excited about. And I really look forward to in a couple of years time, whenever our whiskey has matured, you know, that it's something to be proud of.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah, so you right now are sourcing a spirit. So somebody, because when I was going through the area and then they were saying, oh, well, there's a Titanic distillers too. And I went, oh,

Damien Rafferty:
Ha ha.

Drew Hannush:
I didn't know. And then they showed me a bottle and I went, oh, they've already got a bottle of spirits. I guess first question is, how do you choose? uh... the spirit that that you're going to put in that initial source offering uh... and then kinda go back in terms of were you there when they were commissioning the stills and and uh... prior to that any part of the decision making in you're going to be producing when you were distilling your own stuff

Damien Rafferty:
So yes, I've actually got a bottle of our stuff here. So this is our sourced blend. It's sourced from, like most places in Ireland, from Great Northern Distillery. It's a natural colour, so you can see it's a lovely colour. I wasn't involved in the sourcing of this because the whiskey's been out there longer than the distillery has been

Drew Hannush:
Okay.

Damien Rafferty:
in operation. So no, I wasn't involved in that, but... It's a lovely nod to Belfast. The directors call it a Belfast style whiskey in that there's a slight peated element in it. So

Drew Hannush:
Mmm.

Damien Rafferty:
there's a small proportion of peated malt in this, but it's not like your Beaumont or your Lager Vollens. It's not gonna completely implode your senses and just peat rake. It's very, very slight. It's a very, very small hint. And there's also a Sherry cask influence in there as well. So... got that sort of balance of sweet and smoke and when I said it's a Belfast style, what they were trying to achieve was, so it's a nod to the old industrial heritage of Belfast, so Belfast would have been a cloud of smoke, you know, there would have been all the

Drew Hannush:
Working class town, definitely.

Damien Rafferty:
working class, all the industry happening, there would have been smoke everywhere, the smell of peat in there, so I suppose that's where the... the peat element has come from and then there's a sherry there as well to try and bring up the sweetness element on it to try and balance the two. It's a 72% grain whisky and a 20% malt.

Drew Hannush:
Okay.

Damien Rafferty:
So yeah, it's a lovely blend and we'll continue to source this blend until our own expressions are available here in the distillery.

Drew Hannush:
Oh, can you hear me?

Damien Rafferty:
I can hear you now, I think he sort of lost you there for a second.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah, it's just your screen froze. And so the thing is this stuff, this thing will keep recording. So, um, but, but maybe pick it back up from, did you finish what you were saying before it froze or, uh,

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, I think I did.

Drew Hannush:
Okay. Alright, so just to kind of fill me in so we can jump back

Damien Rafferty:
So,

Drew Hannush:
in.

Damien Rafferty:
yeah, we will continue to source this blend until such times that our own expressions are available here in the distillery. So we're hoping that, you know, what comes out of this distillery is exclusive. And if you want to get it, you're going to have to come here and get it, you know? So, so.

Drew Hannush:
Are you going to, are you keeping the Pete element in there?

Damien Rafferty:
We haven't settled on an exact style that we're going to continue with. So I suppose my role really is to produce interesting spart, source great casks, and then in three years' time hopefully a blender will be able to come out with a really good expression.

Drew Hannush:
Mm-hmm.

Damien Rafferty:
But we have the option here to go down the Peded route if we wish. We could do a campaign of Peded if we wish. but we've got so many options. We can even produce not only single malt, but also pot still varieties here. So

Drew Hannush:
Okay.

Damien Rafferty:
yeah, we've got a lot of flexibility in the brew house, but also in the still house as well.

Drew Hannush:
Do you have a mash and lauder ton separate or?

Damien Rafferty:
So you can just see here, we've got, it's a mash lighter. So we mash into it and

Drew Hannush:
Uh-huh.

Damien Rafferty:
we can, there's a steam jacket around it so we can manipulate the temperatures and different things to produce what's required for pot still. And then that's a lighter ton as well. So it's an all in one vessel.

Drew Hannush:
Okay, and then your triple distilling.

Damien Rafferty:
Yes, we've got three stills, three lovely pot stills there behind me, if you can just see,

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
made by Forsaids. So we have the option to double the still as well, if we wish. That's where...

Drew Hannush:
They look very small back there. Are they, how big are they? Because of course they're at a distance, so I can't really tell.

Damien Rafferty:
So our size, so we operate here is one brew, one, so this is a fermenter here, so one brew, one washback, one distillation.

Drew Hannush:
Mm-hmm.

Damien Rafferty:
So each washback is two and a half thousand litres, so the wash still is two thousand five hundred litres. And then fifteen hundred litres in the middle still, and then in the spurred still is one thousand litres.

Drew Hannush:
Okay.

Damien Rafferty:
So it is small and boutiquey, but you know we were... it that's a it suits us we want to be a bit more known for our quality not our quantity

Drew Hannush:
Yeah. Well, when you think of a place like Glen Fittick and you walk in there and you see they have tons of stills, but they're all small stills, which is kind of an interesting

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah.

Drew Hannush:
thing to see. Did you travel around to other distilleries much or have you basically just kind of hung out in the ones that you've worked at?

Damien Rafferty:
No, so whenever we head on holidays, my wife and I, it's almost like a busman's holiday. We'll go somewhere and I say, oh there happens to be a distillery just around the corner, we'll maybe go and visit.

Drew Hannush:
Heheheheh

Damien Rafferty:
But yeah, I try to get to as many distilleries as I can. The last one I got to was Waterford last

Drew Hannush:
Okay,

Damien Rafferty:
summer.

Drew Hannush:
yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
So I'm a big fan of what Waterford are trying to achieve there with their farm. Single of Origin and different types of malt and different types of terroir. So I'm a big fan of what they're doing down there. And also we're heading to England in the summer just for a bit of a camping trip. So I'm hoping to catch a few English distilleries because I think what they're doing is quite interesting. They're not really tied to the same laws as Scotland or what we're doing in Ireland. They've got a bit more freedom. So I'd like to check out some over there too.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah, I must say English whiskey is the only one of, well I haven't had Welsh whiskey and I haven't had English whiskey, so I still have some experimenting myself to do.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, also, we have a friend who's fortunate enough to have a house on Islay, so I'd like to take him up on his offer and go over there and visit because it's a short hop, you know, just

Drew Hannush:
Oh

Damien Rafferty:
get

Drew Hannush:
yeah?

Damien Rafferty:
a... Yeah.

Drew Hannush:
Absolutely. So you haven't been to Iowa yet?

Damien Rafferty:
No, I haven't been, no.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
It's on the list. We've got a young family, so it's hard to get out these days, you know.

Drew Hannush:
Yeah, it's funny to think though that you could go up to the Giants Causeway and just look out and see Isla from there.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah,

Drew Hannush:
I've looked

Damien Rafferty:
that's

Drew Hannush:
the

Damien Rafferty:
it.

Drew Hannush:
other way and it's really interesting to say, oh you know Bush Mills is right over there.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, funny I got talking to a guy, this is a couple of years ago at a conference and he was like the Maltings manager at Port Ellen

Drew Hannush:
Mm-hmm.

Damien Rafferty:
and he was telling me that whenever he first took on the role as Maltings manager, one of the first people to come into his office was a local resident and he said the housing estate was called Antrim View because they look across at County Antrim

Drew Hannush:
Huh?

Damien Rafferty:
and he said what can I help you with and he says oh my TV reception for the Irish channels. has been interrupted, can you sort it out?" I said, well, what am I going to do about it?

Drew Hannush:
Hahaha

Damien Rafferty:
And he's like, well, the aerial is on top of the silos, looking toward crossover to Ireland. So they'd obviously knocked the aerial or something. So

Drew Hannush:
Yeah.

Damien Rafferty:
he had to go up and fix the aerial for the residents of Islay so they could get their Irish TV channels.

Drew Hannush:
That's so funny. I like to say, and you've probably heard me say this before, because I really enjoy my time in Northern Ireland and Belfast. And I think part of it was that I felt the comforts of home, coming from the mountains of North Carolina and the Scots-Irish and that influence there. But also because I had traveled some through Scotland. And one of my favorite parts of Scotland is Campbelltown. And they're right across from you.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah.

Drew Hannush:
like you just feel kind of that, you feel that you're more than neighbors in some ways and maybe watching each other's TV stations is part

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah,

Drew Hannush:
of the reason.

Damien Rafferty:
yeah, yeah. I remember when I was an engineer, I did a bit of work over in Scotland on the, on the coast and I could hear like the local radio station clear here than I did at my home house. It was incredible.

Drew Hannush:
That's so funny. So describe the tours again for somebody who's going to come along. You have four different tours that you do?

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, so we've got the signature tour, the premium tour, the dock tour and the legacy tour. So the dock tour is what it says on the tin. You come along and we've got a tour guide to take you around the Thomson Dock. And then there's the signature tour, which is the distillery. So where I am situated right now in the pump house. So you get to go through a guided tour of the pump house. And then there's a walkway right the whole way around the distillery here. back into the visitor centre for a tasting. The premium tour is the dock and the pump house and then the legacy tour is the dock, the pump house and then you actually will bring you down into the distillery. You get to have a look around where I get to play around with every day and then down, so just below here is now a 44 foot drop down into the

Drew Hannush:
Mm.

Damien Rafferty:
pump well where you get to see the original Gwyn's pumps. And then there's a bottle of whiskey as well to take with you. So the Legacy Tour is only an exclusive tour, there's only so many per month.

Drew Hannush:
Okay, very nice. And you guys are open as of, I'm trying to figure out what date we're talking about,

Damien Rafferty:
the 20th. That's right,

Drew Hannush:
of April, so

Damien Rafferty:
yeah.

Drew Hannush:
by the time this airs, everybody will be able to make their plans to go to Belfast and...

Damien Rafferty:
That's it, yeah, book a tour on titanictostellers.com

Drew Hannush:
Very nice. Yeah, I laugh because I probably would have known about the distiller. Everybody said, oh, you're going to Belfast, so you're gonna go do the Titanic tour. And I stayed on Newtonards Road, so I was right around the corner from where it was at. But it was, I was just so short on time trying to plug all of these different places in, that it's like doing regular touristy things. I hadn't really

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah

Drew Hannush:
the time to do it. But if I had... I would have learned a little earlier that there was a distillery there and in the in the works. And so next time, I'll see you. Bye.

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah, I suppose our directors have been very sort of quiet and didn't really want to say, oh, we're building something here until actually we had something to show. So now that we do, we're shouting from the rooftops, come and see us now. It's everything's in place, ready to go. So yeah, I think you can be forgiven to not know that we were here.

Drew Hannush:
Very nice. Well, so in terms of where the whiskey is being sold right now, is it mainly in Northern Ireland and Ireland, or are you into the continent at all, and any plans for the U.S.?

Damien Rafferty:
So at the moment we're just really in Northern Ireland and we're trying to get into the Republic of Ireland. So not only just whiskey, we have a vodka as well. So it's been made by another distillery for us exclusively. So that's a big seller as well for us. And there is plans obviously to get into the UK and mainland UK and America. So we just need to find the right distributor for us. there is discussions happening for plans to export to the US. And it may not be the same blend as this. It might have another expression. So that's something we're working on at the moment. Yeah.

Drew Hannush:
Very nice. All right, well, excellent. Well, Damien, I really appreciate you reaching out to me and letting me know that you guys were opening for business and giving us the background and your background and now people hopefully have a little bit more of a understanding of Titanic distillers and what they're gonna experience there and to make sure it's a book, if they're interested in the ship, A Trip to the Museum, but... everybody that's listening to this show should be interested in whiskey so you will

Damien Rafferty:
Yeah.

Drew Hannush:
also want to book a separate ticket for

Damien Rafferty:
Absolutely,

Drew Hannush:
coming over to

Damien Rafferty:
absolutely.

Drew Hannush:
see the Pump House and the Docs. Thank you so much for being on the show and I wish you the best of success.

Damien Rafferty:
Thank you Drew, it's my pleasure. Please do call and see us next time you're here.

Drew Hannush:
Will do, definitely.