About
Small craft distillery on the shores of Lough Mask in County Mayo. Produces single malt and single pot still Irish whiskey, plus gin and poitin. Part of the growing Connacht whiskey revival alongside Nephin, Connacht, and Achill Island distilleries.
Production Details
The Lough Mask Tale
In the shadow of the Partry Mountains, where County Mayo's wild heart beats strongest, Lough Mask stretches like a mirror between ancient hills. Here, on shores that have witnessed everything from Bronze Age settlements to Fenian rebellions, Ireland's newest whiskey makers chose their ground in 2021.
The lake itself tells the story. Fed by underground channels from Lough Carra, its waters carry the mineral memory of limestone caverns and granite peaks. When the founders of Lough Mask Distillery drew their first samples, they weren't just testing for purity—they were tasting terroir that predates written history.
This is Connacht whiskey country now, though few would have believed it a generation ago. While Dublin and Cork dominated Ireland's distilling map, the western counties nursed older traditions—poitín makers who never stopped, even when the law demanded it. When Lough Mask Distillery fired its first copper pot, it joined a quiet renaissance. Nephin to the north, Connacht Whiskey in Ballina, Achill Island off the coast—suddenly Mayo had become a whiskey region again.
The stillhouse sits where lake winds carry the scent of bog myrtle and wild thyme. Inside, copper gleams against stone walls, but the real character lives in the choices: single malt alongside single pot still whiskey, honoring both Scotland's gift to Ireland and Ireland's own ancient grain bills. The pot still tradition—that marriage of malted and unmalted barley that defines Irish whiskey—finds new expression here, each batch drawing character from waters that reflect Croagh Patrick's holy summit.
Beyond whiskey, the distillery crafts gin and poitín, that clear spirit the Irish were making centuries before anyone thought to age it in wood. It's a nod to continuity, to the understanding that distillation never really left these hills—it just went underground, waiting for its moment to emerge.
The warehouses are filling now, barrels breathing with the lake's rhythms. In a few years, when the first whiskeys reach maturity, they'll carry something no other distillery can claim: the taste of Lough Mask's ancient waters, the western winds' patience, and Mayo's stubborn refusal to let tradition die. The Connacht revival has found its newest voice.