Irish spirit sales increased by 6% in Ireland in 2022 and the value of spirit exports increased by 17.3% to almost €1.5bn, according to the Irish Spirits Market Report for 2022 published by Drinks Ireland in August.

Irish whiskey export sales hit 15.2 million cases in 2022. The United States remains the biggest buyer of Irish whiskey, followed by the United Kingdom.

The report stated that Poland and South Africa are two regions which have seen growth for the Irish whiskey market.

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In fact, Poland’s market grew by 24%, making it Irish whiskey’s fourth biggest market.

Cream sales

The report stated that Irish cream sales drew closer to 10m cases, which was a benchmark in sales during 2022.

Irish poitín sales were estimated to decline in 2022 and are in line with sales in 2018 and 2019.

Irish gin sales have started to slow down, according to the report. Drinks Ireland stated: “Gin’s meteoric rise in the last 10 years has slowed in 2022 (down 1.7% vs 2021).”

The report commented on the rise in costs to produce Irish spirits. The report stated: “During 2022, we saw the spectre of inflation in costs of grain, glass, transport and energy become a reality and, unfortunately, these challenges have showed little sign of abating going into 2023, driving up producer and consumer pricing across the globe.”

'Quality raw materials'

The report comments on how these spirits are produced from “quality raw materials grown by Irish farmers”. However, large amounts of maize are imported into the country to produce a large proportion of Irish whiskey.

Work is ongoing in trying to produce more Irish drinks from Irish grain and a new facility at Teagasc’s Crops Research Centre in Co Carlow should help with this.

It is a large investment in researching Irish grain’s suitability for replacing imported grain in drinks production.

In total, the drinks industry uses about 300,000t of Irish grain for beer and spirits production. This harvest, large amounts of Irish barley failed to meet specifications for malting, so less will be available this season to produce Irish drinks.