J. J. Corry

Irish Whiskey’s early history was defined in part by the symbiotic relationship of the distillery and the bonder. Rather than concern themselves with the logistics of marketing and distributing their whiskeys post-production, Irish distilleries would sell their spirit to merchants who would then age, blend, and bottle small batches to sell in their own pubs and shops, creating localized, bespoke whiskey brands throughout the country. When the Irish Whiskey trade declined in the late nineteenth century, so did the number of distilleries. By the 1930s, less than a handful remained, choosing to bottle and sell their own whiskeys and effectively bringing the end to the practice of bonding.

While browsing in an antique shop in Kilrush, a small port town just a few miles from Cooraclare, Louise McGuane came across an empty vintage whiskey bottle that advertised, “Mature Irish whiskey, bonded & carefully bottled by J.J. Corry. KIlrush Co. Clare.” With some research, Louise was able to track the history of the Victorian merchant to his local shop, established in 1890, that sold tea, ammunition, musical instruments, and among other things, bonded whiskey. Louise was inspired to research Ireland’s history of bonding, and her resulting efforts to revitalize the category would come to bear the historical J.J. Corry name.

Louise founded J.J. Corry in 2013 as the only solo female founder of an Irish Whiskey brand. She has harnessed years of experience in the spirits industry—spearheading marketing and development initiatives for global brands such as Moët Hennessey (LVMH), Pernod Ricard, and Diageo—into creating J.J. Corry in her birthplace of County Clare. Here on her family’s farm in Cooraclare, Louise has established a purpose-built rackhouse to take advantage of the temperature fluctuations of County Clare’s section of the “Wild Atlantic Way,” the cliff-studded and wind-whipped coastline that runs along Ireland’s western border, creating a salty and humid microclimate tailor-made for dynamic whiskey aging. In the J.J. Corry rackhouse, casks hand-picked from wineries, distilleries, and coopers around the world are filled on-site with mostly commissioned new make and some Irish whiskey with previous age. These maturing spirits are then categorized by flavor profile into a carefully curated “flavor library” that allows Louise’s team to strategically blend fruit-forward whiskeys of varying batch size for continuous, limited, and private bottlings.

As Irish Whiskey experiences a flush of new distilleries and innovative producers, the time has never been better to select and nurture beautifully made distillates upon which to practice the arts of maturation and blending. J.J. Corry was the first licensed whiskey bonder in Ireland in over fifty years and the first licensed whiskey producer in County Clare in over one hundred. Championing collaboration and transparency while bottling complex yet approachable blends, Louise McGuane and her team have revived tradition while unflinchingly representing the contemporary Irish whiskey landscape.