Inside Bord Bia, Ireland’s Big Global Spirits Push

Irish spirits — whiskey in particular — is one of the fastest growing liquor categories in America. U.S.-based sales of Irish whiskey are up over 90 percent in the last decade. Much of that growth comes from major brands like Jameson and Bushmills, but dozens of new labels are gaining market share as well as the number of active Irish distillers passes 50. (That’s especially astounding considering that, in the mid-1980s, there were only two operational distilleries between Northern Ireland and the Republic.)

The reasons that U.S. consumers are drinking more Irish whiskey than a generation ago are multifaceted. Quality liquid, expanding palates, and good old-fashioned curiosity are huge drivers. But as we get deeper into the 21st century, that continued growth is increasingly supported by the Irish government itself. The Irish Food Board — better known as Bord Bia — has a government mandate to help domestic brands big and small expand to more and more foreign markets.

That includes connecting producers to North American retailers, providing free Irish spirits education to American bartenders, and even providing graphic design support for emerging brands tinkering with their bottling and labels. While it’s easy equate government involvement with red tape, when it comes to spirits, Bord Bia’s efforts are more akin to marketing partner than regulatory body.

On a recent Bord Bia-sponsored trip to Ireland with the New Hampshire Liquor Commission, I spent nearly a week with Daragh Flanagan, Vice President, Drinks at Bord Bia North America. Flanagan is currently based out of New York and is the sole full-time Bord Bia employee focused on the North American drinks market. After the trip, Daragh and I sat down to talk about the growth of Irish spirits, how the government is (and isn’t) involved with growth, and where growth is most likely to come beyond whiskey.

Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Drinkhacker: Can you give us little background on your career in the spirits space and your current role with Bord Bia?

Daragh Flanagan: I started working in bars and nightclubs back in Ireland, just outside of Dublin. I kind of fell in love with that whole scene, to be honest! Then I was very fortunate out of college to get offered a placement on the Jameson Graduate Program. Jameson is Ireland’s biggest whiskey brand by some distance. Pernod Ricard, the group which owns it, has a long-running program that sends Irish graduates all over the world to spread the word of their portfolio in various countries.

I was sent to Norway, where I lived for about a year and did a lot of educational work. It was brand ambassadorial, so lots of promotion, lots of education, trying to go on premise, off premise. It was also my first introduction to a monopoly owned off-premise system, which came in handy when I’ve started working with control states in the United States. I came back to Ireland after that. Eventually, I came into the biggest pillar of my career as I would describe it, which was five years in Diageo.

After Covid, I spent two years specifically on luxury spirits, which was a really good introduction and education into the kind of world I’m in now, where we’re talking high end whiskeys, gins, vodkas, everything in between.

In my last role with Diageo, I spent a lot of time in New York, Austin, Sydney, and major European markets. I fell in love with the New York scene in particular. The NYC cocktail scene is second to none. The cocktail scene in Ireland, comparatively, is in its infancy. And I think there was a little bit of internal hunger and drive to go and challenge myself to work in the industry in such a mature market. Then I found the opportunity with Bord Bia, which is interesting, because we’re essentially non-brand affiliated, but also responsible for working with all the the Irish brands!

Drinkhacker: Tell me a little about how Bord Bia operates, especially with spirits companies.

Daragh Flanagan: We are a semi-state owned company and government funded, so we work under the government umbrella of Ireland, and we are responsible to aid any and all Irish exported brand. There’s an arm of the business that does food, for example. My role is specifically with alcoholic drinks, and it’s essentially helping to get Irish brands more listings, more commercial viability, and to educate people in the trade in North America about what’s coming out of Ireland.

We work closely with [other Irish government agencies] in agriculture, food, and drink. We’re not political, to be clear. So once we get our assigned funding, we’ll generally work on three to five year strategic plans, and we’ll work very closely then with the “clients” as we call them, who are essentially the Irish producers and companies. And we’ll designate that kind of funding for various different things. Our Spirit of Ireland Program is probably our top priority when it comes to the alcohol game, and that is our one-stop shop for education and immersion into everything Irish spirits: the past in the present and in the future for what’s to come. And that’s what we’re trying to roll out globally.

We’ve had a lot of success so far with it in the States with trade-focus education. Our headquarters is still in Dublin. We have a really large team there who will dictate how things are operated globally, and then I will take that and funnel it into the North American strategy.

Drinkhacker: You’re the only drinks-specific employee currently for Bord Bia in the United States, correct?

Daragh Flanagan: That’s correct. Globally, in fact. The vast majority of people in 15 different markets internationally will cover drinks and food. Bord Bia made the decision that North America merits its own drinks dependent person. And that person should probably have a bit of expertise, because when you’re going out, having conversations with people in North America, they are really passionate about alcohol, and they’re educated on the current trends and insights. It absolutely merits its own drinks designated person for sure.

Drinkhacker: Are there requirements for a brand to work with Bord Bia? You’re non-brand affiliated, but you all will work with brands from small craft operations all the way up to the biggest producers.

Daragh Flanagan: There are numerous requirements, but the big ones is that the brand needs to be based in and produced in Ireland. We’re never going to encourage “Irish whiskey” that’s not actually produced on the island of Ireland. We’re actually just the Republic of Ireland; Northern Ireland will have its own separate legislation.

The brands need to prove that; we will give them a set criteria of how they can do that. And then the other component that’s probably even more important and certainly more prominent in our media is our sustainability initiatives. We have a program called Origin Green, which is the only state-run sustainability program in the world, and the only one that we actually hold ourselves accountable for from a governmental position. And that is essentially a list of requirements that each brand or each producer or each distillery needs to hit and meet continually every year, every couple of years. They need to keep hitting that to be considered a Bord Bia client and to gain our support and resource.

Drinkhacker: What does that support look like, specifically?

Daragh Flanagan: A lot of them are tangible experiences just being in the field. I’ll get the basic level of their goals and help them strategize how they might enter the U.S. market, for example. How do they go about getting an importer or distributor? Introducing them to America’s three tier system is important, because in Ireland we have a vastly different system. That’s an educational piece and a consultancy piece as much as anything.

Once we’re past that stage, which a lot of Irish spirits producers are at this point, is to consider: Where are they spending their time, and where am I spending mine to help them? How do I help them excel? How do I help them actually thrive and survive once they’re in market? So we’re involved in a lot of the strategic discussions, like what states they should focus on. We’re involved in what premises they should go after. If you want scale it back all the way, even at a brand’s inception, we have a team at Bord Bia who help with their creative programs, their logos, their look, their artistry. It’s really all encompassing.

It probably depends on when a brand joins us on their journey to a certain extent. But in terms of my day to day and how I support them, it’s very much, “Can I involve them in education?” So if it’s a whiskey brand, and I’ve got a big group who loves Scotch and they’re all talking about single malts, and I may turn up with three Irish single malts thev’e never heard of. It’s about exposure. It’s very simplistic to us in the industry, but I think there’s a huge gap still of people who probably just aren’t getting enough free education, or enough education readily available to them, about spirits categories. That’s the gap I’m trying to plug. And it’s just giving those brands and those producers every chance to succeed.

Drinkhacker: How are you all connecting brands with large off-premises buyers and retailers?

Daragh Flanagan: We have huge resources that are constantly churning out inside and category knowledge. We’re always trying to package up some presentations when it comes to Irish spirits: what’s coming down the track, what’s going to be the big trend. And a lot of my job when I get in front of those big chain retailers is to educate them on what they could invest in. So why should they invest in more listings of Irish whiskey, or Irish cream? Here’s the reason, here’s the data.

Drinkhacker: How do you think the perception of Irish spirits and how we consume Irish spirits is changing in the United States?

Daragh Flanagan: I think there’s still very much a dominance of thought that Irish whiskey is mild, 80 proof, and easy to shoot, right? And I think that’s fine, and that’s how we built some volume back over the decades. We’re never going to look down on that, but I think we can use vehicles such as other categories to actually enhance people’s overall interest and knowledge around our spirits. Poitín is a great example. Poitín is the grandfather to whiskey, it was around in Ireland before whiskey. So the heritage alone speaks to so many people who just want learn more and want to try new things. I think it can be our own little mezcal slice. The reason so many bartenders in particular have such an affinity towards the agave and mezcal is that there’s so much heritage and craft that goes into it.

And I think poitín can be the same. It’s one of the oldest indigenous spirits in the world. It dates back to before America was ever a thought. And the liquid itself holds up! We think cocktails are where it’s going to grow and thrive . It’s an incredibly unique clear spirit. It has the essence of what goes into a future whiskey, but it also has the versatility of a vodka. It’s amazing in mixed drinks, and we think people with the heritage and the liquid quality itself could have a lot of fun with it. None of these big corporate corporations have the poitín brands at the moment. It is the independent guys and girls with the heritage stories. So we want to try and do it as a team, for want of a better word, and give this whole category the best chance to succeed.

Drinkhacker: What excites you most about the potential of Irish spirits in the North American market right now?

Daragh Flanagan: It’s hard to look past the on-premise, the bars and restaurants. No one is saying to get rid of bourbon and use Irish whiskey only. We all grew up in the cocktail scene in Ireland using bourbon in whiskey sours and old fashioneds. It’s fantastic, it’s the right liquid, but I think there’s room to grow in that space for Irish spirts. We’re putting up our best liquid against Scotland’s best or against America’s best. And you suddenly get the bartenders more educated about those liquids that they can use in mixed drinks, but also in neat service to their whiskey drinking.

Suddenly you’ve got additional spokespeople who that are really going spread the word and get that organic sales and reputation up of those spirits. And I think that’s just so important. That’s where we’re going to spend a lot of our time in that educational space, going to all the important trade shows: Bar Convent Brooklyn, Tales of the Cocktail, and more, just trying to shout about it so much.

I think our best path to success may be to bring over more people in Irish spirits to the U.S., and let them tell the story straight from the original source. And let North American bartenders trial and error and sample these mixed drinks with different Irish spirits no one’s tried over here. I think that’s an incredibly exciting thing to do, and it’ll be a huge part of how the category grows in North America.

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