About
Located in Drumshanbo, County Leitrim, famous for producing Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin (a global bestseller). Also produces single pot still and single malt Irish whiskey under the Drumshanbo brand. Founded by PJ Rigney. The gin's international success has funded significant whiskey ambitions.
Production Details
The Shed Tale
In the lakeland heart of County Leitrim, where the Shannon waters gather strength before their long journey to the Atlantic, PJ Rigney found his spring in 2014. Drumshanbo had always been a crossroads—the name itself speaks of ridges and hills, the kind of rolling country where water finds its own path through limestone and bog.
The Shed Distillery rose from Rigney's conviction that this forgotten corner of Connacht held secrets worth bottling. The local spring water that feeds his operation carries the mineral memory of ancient rock, filtered through layers that have watched empires rise and fall. It's water with character—soft enough for the delicate work of distillation, yet carrying the subtle complexity that marks the best Irish whiskeys.
What began as an ambitious gin venture—Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin, with its exotic botanicals and global reach—has become the foundation for something deeper. The gin's remarkable success across international markets proved that innovation and tradition could dance together, that a small distillery in rural Ireland could speak to palates worldwide.
But Rigney's true ambition lay in whiskey, in reviving the ancient art of uisce beatha in a county where distillation had long fallen silent. The same copper pot stills that birth his celebrated gin now nurture both single pot still and single malt Irish whiskeys under the Drumshanbo name. Here, the triple distillation tradition of Ireland meets the particular terroir of Leitrim—that interplay of soft water, clean air, and the patient rhythm of a place where time moves differently.
The distillery embodies the modern Irish whiskey renaissance, where small producers reclaim regional identity within the broader national tradition. Each drop carries the DNA of its place: the spring water's limestone kiss, the Atlantic weather patterns that sweep across the midlands, the determination of a man who saw possibility where others saw only quiet countryside.
In Drumshanbo, the future of Irish whiskey writes itself one careful distillation at a time, funded by gin's global embrace but rooted in the eternal promise of pot still and malt, aging quietly in the shadow of Leitrim's gentle hills.