History of famous Irish Mist whiskey liqueur launched in Offaly

“Irish Mist: The Story of Tullamore’s Whiskey Liqueur 1945–1985, Ireland’s Legendary Liqueur and the people who made it”, a history of the famous product was launched on Friday night last in Offaly History Centre in Tullamore.

The book was edited by local historian, Michael Byrne, and John Flanagan, who worked in Irish Mist for three decades.

In his address at the launch, Michael Byrne said: “Irish Mist Liqueur brought the Tullamore name to every corner of the world and was a unique development in Ireland and a world leader in its class in the 1960s and 1970s. Great ideas and design were used to bring this about. Marketeers and design people for the Irish Mist product from Le Brocquy to the staff member on the floor – all had a role in ensuring quality. The Irish Mist Liqueur Company was led from 1945 to 1970 by Desmond Williams, ably assisted by William G. (Bill) Jaffray. Bill Jaffray led from 1970 until the sale of Irish Mist Liqueur to Cantrell & Cochrane (C&C) in 1985. This is the story of how Desmond Williams saw the opportunity to transform the Irish whiskey industry and to bring it to American and European markets in new blended formats, using clever and innovative ideas and marketing, while all the while insistent on the highest quality. The work that Williams did for Irish whiskey and Irish Mist in the United States, the main market was to bear fruit from the 1990s with the stunning revival of the Irish whiskey industry. The Irish Mist company employed up to 80 people in the late 1970s and was a significant contributor to the Williams Group of companies.

Research for the essays in this book began in 1977–78 when the first editor (Michael Byrne) was commissioned to write a history of the Williams Group and took the story of Irish Mist to 1966. It was a family-owned company and very private. Nothing more was done until 2016 when a reunion of the Irish Mist staff was held at the Tullamore DEW Old Bonded Warehouse and turned out to be a great evening.

Our second editor, John Flanagan, was keen to get the story of Irish Mist into print, and now this series of essays with contributions of great strength and variety. John made his own unique contribution with his essays and, like his mentors in Irish Mist, insisted on the highest standards. John Flanagan has several essays arising from his close connection with Irish Mist and the Williams Group over twenty-five years.

Brian Jaffray, only son of Bill Jaffray, has edited an interview that Maurice O’Keefe did with Bill in 2007 fifteen years after Bill’s retirement, and added his own reflections.

Frank Nicholson played a big part in the 2016 reunion, and we are glad to have his article and all the photographs of that occasion.

Guy Williams (the only son of Desmond) has contributed a valuable piece on his father and I am glad to say is here with his wife Anne this evening.

Anne Williams (daughter of Edmund Williams and a great granddaughter of the founder) worked with the company in the 1980s and brings her experience travelling the world to this collection. She sends her apologies because of a prior event.

Ger Scully, the editor of the Tullamore Tribune, interviewed one of the employees of Irish Mist, the late Ned Connor in 2016. Ned died in 2019 and many here can recall him as a very fine person and sincere friend.

Mike Murphy was the Williams Group Marketing Director in the 1970s and without him my own essay and my own involvement might never have arisen. He too sends his apologies and I am sorry not to see him as he was a great support to me when working on the Williams Group history without being in any way interventionist.

We have essays also from Gerry Molyneaux who as a chemist was strong on the product and helped secure the Q Mark. Gerry was a close friend from his arrival in Tullamore and went on to great things. By the way I am not the man who was the chief chemist when Gerry arrived in Tullamore in 1979.

The work of Camillus Dwane in design across the Williams Group was a marvel. And as you can see from his essay on the legends associated with Irish Mist, he got to meet all his favourite people along the way.

Speaking of the legends, in particular that associated with the Austrian who came to Ireland with the secret recipe for the liqueur, I was delighted to make contract with Dr Peter Hallgarten who lives in London and whose father introduced the idea of liqueurs to Ireland over 75 years ago. Desmond Williams, Bill Jaffray and Bill O’Donovan worked with Fritz Hallgarten’s firm to develop and market what would by the late 1940s become Irish Mist Liqueur.

For this book we were also able to draw on work by Desmond Williams, Gerald Luke, the local press, an interview with Edmund Williams, that of Ernie Coffey, Una Mullery and Pat Given.

The few cases of Irish Mist exported to the U.S. and Canada in the late 1940s would grow to thousands in the late 1950s and really successful in the 1960s and 1970s. So much so that new offices and warehouses were built and production moved out of the old bonded warehouse into purpose designed buildings. The new office block visitor facility sowed the seed for the Tullamore Dew Visitor Centre, but the new warehouses became largely redundant when Irish Mist was sold in 1985 to C&C and bottling moved to Clonmel. By that time the new cream liqueurs were very much in the ascendant and today sell 10 million cases, and Irish spirits 15 million cases.

It is a curious irony that as we launch this book today in wine & spirits warehouse of the 1950s the last of the new warehouses built for the expanding Irish Mist in the 1970s and early 1980s has been demolished to clear the site for a new supermarket. We can take heart from the fact that we have the new Tullamore D.E.W. distillery in Tullamore, building on the brand first developed by Daniel E. Williams and promoted from the 1950s by his grandson Desmond. The new distillery, the first in Ireland in 100 years when it was built in 2014, would not be here but for the work of the Williams family, Bill Jaffray and all the staff who worked in Irish Mist, the old distillery, and the wine and spirits department of D.E. Williams. The old bonded warehouse has gone through some changes since the 1990s, but is still the Old Warehouse and now a bar and restaurant. The new William Grant owned Tullamore DEW distillery and visitor centre is on the bypass close to the town.

People change and tastes change but we look forward to a time when Irish Mist might again be blended and bottled here in Tullamore where it all started from a surplus supply of whiskey in 1945–47.

Leadership, we are told, is about change and we are seeing a lot of it since the internet and the smart phone were founded. One benefit is that it provides the material and the need to record. While there were urgings from John Flanagan to get on with a book on Irish Mist it might never have happened but for the reunion of Irish Mist staff in 2016 and the funding made available by Creative Ireland and Offaly County Council in 2023 for a publication highlighting the contribution of Irish Mist to design and innovation.

The other John Flanagan, the Tullamore builder and venture capitalist (in the best sense), always remarked on the value of public investment in an enterprise by way of a kick start or in his own phase ‘encouragement’. And that was what happened here, but of course subject to implementation within the calendar year. Always a mighty incentive to get on with the job and reach the finish line.

Fortunately, there was the work of my own of 1977–78 all carefully typed at that time by Rose Dunne of the corporate services department of the Williams Group which as some of you may know then employed up to 1200 people. While the entire archive of Irish Mist is now scattered a good deal of it survived and is now in Offaly Archives. The catalogue of the contents is now online thanks to the work of the archivists here in Offaly. We as editors were ably assisted by archivist Orla Connaughton who took over earlier this year from Lisa Shortall. As you can see from this book the photographic record is substantial and of high quality.

This is a contribution to a business history of an important Tullamore-based large private company, as to one of its subsidiaries that was both innovative and successful. In truth publications on all the companies in the Williams Group are needed and this can only be a start. This collection of essays comes at a good time while there are people living who worked in Irish Mist Liqueur when it was Tullamore-based and can contribute.

It is great to have some Irish Mist here this evening and for that thanks to Bryan Fallon of Heaven Hill International, the owner of Carolans Cream and Irish Mist. I want to express my thanks first to my wife Geraldine and my two children, Diarmuid and Eavan, to Breda Kenny and all the staff in Offaly History Centre, to Amanda Pedlow, Karen Gray, Offaly County Council, Creative Ireland, to my colleagues John Flanagan, Brian Jaffray and Frank Nicholson, to all our contributors, to the late Edmund Williams for commissioning a history in the first place, and to you all for coming this evening. Finally, to the men and women of the local press who have recorded all our doings here since Offaly History was founded in 1969.