Major expansion for whiskey ageing facility supported by Teeling and Jack Daniel’s owner

A major expansion of a large whiskey storage facility in Co Louth has been given the green light by council planners as the company looks to help the continued expansion of the industry by providing more maturation capacity.

According to a recent planning decision notice, BAK Bulk Services has been granted permission to develop five large bonded whiskey maturation units at its site in Dunleer, Co Louth. The company, which originally specialised in the storage of coal and grain, is hoping to be able to hold 196,560 casks of whiskey in the new warehouses, bringing the total it can hold across its entire maturation facility to almost 380,000 casks.

According to planning documents submitted by BAK, the company is aiming to address the “primary challenge facing the continued expansion of the Irish whiskey industry and in particular maturation capacity”. The documents said the company’s existing maturation facility was at around 80pc capacity at the time of writing and was expected to be full by early 2024.

“BAK Bulk Services wishes to have additional maturation capacity to meet the current and future demand from their distillery and whiskey brand owners,” the planning document said.

“The proposed maturation facility will be attractive to new and planned distilleries and independent brand owners in Louth and the wider northeast.

“The proposed development will back up the growing traditional Irish whiskey industry in Co Louth and the northeast. The likes of Boann Distillery, Slane Distillery, Great Northern Distillery and Cooley Distillers have established strong indigenous roots in supporting the Irish whiskey sector.”

The application came with letters of supports from various distilleries in the area.

John Teeling-owned Great Northern Distillery provided its support, stating it had an “immediate requirement” for additional storage space.

Jack Daniel’s bourbon whiskey producer Brown Forman, which owns Slane Irish Whiskey, also provided support.

Teeling Whiskey also wrote a letter of support for the project, sharing its ongoing requirement for warehousing space for the maturation of whiskey.

The proposed new facility by BAK would sustain around 10 workers.

In 2021, BAK secured investment of €5m to upgrade and expand its whiskey maturation facilities in Co Louth. It got €3.4m from the Goodbody 2019 EIIS Fund and a further €1.6m from the Goodbody 2020 EIIS Fund.

The Goodbody EIIS Fund is a joint venture between Goodbody Stockbrokers and Baker Tilly.

According to documents filed on the Companies Registration Office, BAK raised over €2.24m in EIIS funding in late December 2023. BAK recorded a turnover of €4.5m for 2022 and a profit before tax of over €253,100.

Investment in whiskey maturation facilities has been on the rise in Ireland recently.

In April 2021, Stafford Bonded, a family business involved in the bond storage of alcohol, received planning permission to develop a whiskey maturation facility in Waterford, which was set to have a value of €57m when built.

Last September, Stafford Bonded got planning permission to further enhance the whiskey facility in Waterford in an investment understood to be worth around €9m. ​

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