Farm diversification in high spirits

Over the past couple of decades, there has been a renaissance in the popularity of Irish whiskey. This has been led by Irish Distillers, with its brand leader Jameson, which is now one of the top selling whiskeys globally. If international sales continue to surge forward, Irish whiskey will outsell Scotch whisky in the decade ahead, taking the Irish spirit back to where it was over a century ago, as the best-selling whiskey in the world. As well as the big distillers, including the aforementioned Irish Distillers, Tullamore Dew and Bushmills, there are now several new distilleries competing successfully on the Irish and global spirits market.
One notable example is the Flying Tumbler Irish whiskey brand developed by Carlow brothers, Thomas and Patrick Walsh. Based at the Walsh farm in Larch Grove, Ballytarsna, Carlow, plans are being implemented to develop whiskey maturation, blending, and bottling facilities for Flying Tumbler on site. Patrick explains: “For us, Flying Tumbler Irish whiskey was always about returning home. The farm at Larch Grove has been in our family for generations, and we wanted to create a new farming future for generations to come. There was a lot of negativity around the industry in 2025 but we are already seeing the positive headwinds of 2026.”

Promoting farm diversification

Carlow Leader is providing funding of €200,000 to assist in the farm-based development of whiskey maturation facilities. The aim is to create 15 new jobs when the farm diversification project is completed. Alongside the diversification project, the Walshes have been busy bottling two new expressions to complete their core trilogy. Launching in the coming months, The Roller, a non-age-stated single grain, and The Tippler, a blend of single pot still and single grain, will be available for export to key markets alongside The Bird, a triple-distilled blend of single malt and single grain that is already well-established and currently retailing in the US for $38.

Origin of the enterprise

Patrick explained the origins of the venture: “We come from a tillage farm in central Carlow where, previously, we mainly grew potatoes. We saw what farmers in the UK were doing using their crops for vodka production. That didn’t really fit with Irish consumer preferences, and we felt it would be very hard to market an Irish vodka. At that point we’d committed to the venture back in 2017 and an opportunity arose to work with third-party distilleries, so we pivoted from a potential vodka enterprise into the whiskey side and that was the origin story for us.
“Carlow Leader has been very supportive, and we work very closely with them. We have existing warehousing on the farm which was previously used for the potato business and is being retrofitted and extended to provide whiskey maturation facilities, as well as blending and micro-bottling.”

Market appeal

Ireland is an essential home market base for Irish whiskey distillers, including Flying Tumbler, and America is the biggest market by volume for Irish whiskey with well over 50 per cent of Irish whiskey exported to the US. With Patrick’s brother, Thomas, resident in Massachusetts, it was natural to concentrate on exporting the Carlow-distilled Flying Tumbler whiskey to the States: “Thomas had a network of connections that we were able to work with in securing distribution into Massachusetts back in 2022 and we’re also in six other states on the east coast of America. The US has been a big market for us and we’re mainly export focused at the moment. It’s not without its challenges. It’s a very complicated system to penetrate, with a legacy system there from prohibition. There’s huge competition. We’re also looking at Europe now and recently attended ProWein, a big spirits and wine trade fair in Dusseldorf.”

The India opportunity

The recent EU trade agreement with India offers opportunities for Irish whiskey producers to focus on a country with the biggest consumption of whiskey in the world, perhaps not surprising given the 1.5 billion population. Patrick is cautiously optimistic: “Seven of the top 10 whiskey brands, globally, are Indian produced. It’s a huge market but the import tariff is still high, so it remains challenging with a very diverse market of different States with different regulations. At our level it’s on the far horizon. We’re still focused on the US and Europe.”

A whiskey trilogy

The Flying Tumbler brand refers to a ‘daredevil acrobatic pigeon with an innate ability to always return home’. Patrick takes up the story: “We found a way to return home to the farm for the next part of our whiskey journey, by bringing whiskey maturation onto the family farm at Larch Grove in Carlow. Flying Tumbler is in full flight, and we have launched new expressions of our whiskey. The well-established Bird is a blend of a single malt and single grain that’s really popular in America. The Roller is a single grain whiskey at 43 per cent, aged for nine years in a mix of Bourbon casks and Jamaican rum casks. We like to call it our party-starter whiskey. It’s very smooth with lots of vanilla and ripe banana flavours. The final product that we launched at ProWein is called the Tippler, targeted at the cocktail maker. It’s got a bit more spice and is a blend of pot-stills and grain whiskeys. The pot-still is a very traditional Irish style of whiskey that includes the likes of Redbreast and the Spot whiskey labels.”

Irish whiskey renaissance

Irish whiskey is now a drink of choice for younger as well as more mature imbibers and it bodes well for the industry. “It’s a marvellous prospect,” says Patrick. “Younger drinkers are looking for something different. They’re looking for brands with stories to tell around their foundation, while at the same time not compromising on taste, smell and quality. There can’t be any compromise in delivering those traits. Marry those together with authenticity and that’s what the younger Gen Z and millennial consumers look for and are willing to pay for.”