Kilbeggan Distillery Experience

Absolutely the best distillery tour we’ve taken. We were lucky enough to book the connoisseur experience, which while a bit pricey, was ABSOLUTELY worthwhile. We were led on a private tour (with no more than 12 at any time, this tour had only 10 on it). For this one, we were able to see not only the parts always open to the public, but go behind the scenes to storehouses and offices. This meant special reserve tastings of whiskey (real, full pours) and even getting to self-​bottle 200mL of whiskey to take home. At the end, we were treated to lunch in the café (it was excellent and greatly above the usual café standards you may expect at a tourist location). Loved every second of the tour — extremely informative, personalized, and well-​worth the time and money. If you happen to be in Ireland when one of these tours is being given, do this! (Only once a month).

What a cute distillery! Great tastings as well, loved the all grain whiskey. Tour guide was informative and the site is very quaint.

La visite d’une distillerie de whisky était dans notre to-​do list pour ce voyage en Irlande.
On s’est décidés pour cette petite distillerie à Kilbeggan, réputée pour son charme.
L’employée en caisse nous dit qu’il n’y avait pas de visite guidée avant 1h, mais elle commence justement une visite guidée à un autre groupe quand on entre !
Finalement, aucun regret, car la visite individuelle est fournie avec un guide papier en français, et qu’on a le temps de s’attarder au long de celle-​ci, très vite dépassés par le groupe guidé. Les explications sont claires et ludiques.
Le lieu est plein de charme. Les anciens équipements en bois, les cuves… étant conservés en l’état.
En deuxième partie, on visite la distillerie actuellement fonctionnelle. C’est bluffant de voir le contenu des cuves remplies et de humer le doux parfum du whisky dans les locaux.
Finalement, on finit au bar de dégustation. Un peu déçus à ce niveau car: on nous sert juste un verre et il n’y a pas vraiment de côté ludique etc; le whisky servi était le moins haut de gamme; la barmaid a proposé des mini bouteilles de whisky a emporter, de différentes sortes, à d’autres visiteurs, et pas nous !

This place is awesome! It is a full size experience! No props, no gimmicks, just a purely authentic distillery. The old equipment is all accessible and maintains its original glory. The new equipment, on the other side of the facility, makes whiskey right before your eyes. The staff is friendly. We took a self-​guided tour where we were able to take as much time at each station as we needed.

Myself and a friend visited here on Saturday, we had a CityDeals voucher which entitled us to the tour, a tasting and a bottle of the standard Kilbeggan whiskey to take away (this only cost € 20 between us!!).
Anyway the place closes at 6pm, and due to events outside our control, (the girls who were our lift were having a ½ day spa treatments in Tullamore, which ran way over), we arrived just after 5pm, such is life, however we had the place to ourselves. The tour is great in that you are left to your own devices, which is the way I like it. There are plenty of signs and details around which explain everything. Also some brilliant photo ops.
The distillery itself is lovingly restored and thankfully lacks the modern aesthetics of hand rails and aluminium steps which helps add to the authenticity. The mill wheel is fully operational and all the machinery inside the museum is in full working order. It feels like a working piece of art, to think it is the oldest distillery in the world and still works — fantastic!
Remember this is now a working distillery and you can see the new barrels in the yard out back. The first produce is due in 2014, until then the Kilbeggan whiskey is produced at the Cooley Distillery (the now owners of this historic site).
The tasting was fun, although a little rushed as the staff were finsihing up. The gift shop is refreshingly good value, no rip offs here.
I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in Whiskey or old industrial machinery.
There is a little bar at the front which sells all the Cooley Distillery’s produce, including the wonderful Connemara Irish Whiskey. This unfortunately closes at 6pm too :(.
The only downside is that we didn’t have enough time, but that was our fault… next time!