China says 'gan-bei' – cheers – to premium Irish whiskey

Ireland is this year's guest of honor at China's International Consumer Products Expo (CICPE).

More than 4,000 brands from 71 countries and regions are exhibiting their products across 128,000 square meters of floor space in Haikou, the capital of China's Hainan Province – and front and center is an Irish whiskey revival.

Half a world away in Ireland, less than two hours' drive south of the capital Dublin, is County Wicklow – the 'garden of Ireland,' famous for its soaring mountains, crystal waters, pure fresh air, and a thousand shades of green.

An inspiration to the country's painters and poets like WB Yeats and his brother, the painter Jack Butler Yeats, the sugarloaf mountain dominates the skyline, a picture-perfect backdrop to the historic Powerscourt Estate.

Featuring a 13th-century castle and two golf courses, the estate has been a film set to the likes of Tom Cruise and Anne Hathaway – so it's hard to imagine a better setting for an Irish distillery, home of a whiskey that's on show at the CICPE from April 13 to 18. 

The new Powerscourt Distillery is part of a revival of Ireland's ancient whiskey tradition, a $20 million-plus investment in a distillery and visitor center that only opened in 2019.

"All the water that goes into our whiskey is mountain water running down into our aquifer underneath the distillery. So very much, location is important to us," explains John Cashman, Powerscourt Distillery's head of whiskey brands.

That mineral-rich water is a key ingredient in the premium Fercullen whiskey. Unlike industrial mass-produced whiskeys, here small-batch artisan pot stilled or grain Irish whiskey age peacefully.

For the half-million tourists visiting Powerscourt Estate each year, a whiskey tasting has become a new highlight - and now China is increasingly raising a glass to premium Irish whiskey too.

What's special about Irish whiskey?

"We're delighted to be taking part in the show at Hainan," says Cashman. "It's a great opportunity for us to showcase our brands. Irish whiskey has a lovely, soft, smooth, sweet flavor profile, which is appealing to people all over the world, particularly to the Chinese flavor profile.

"We're seeing great growth in China over the past few years. Considering we only launched three years ago in China, we're now the third-largest Irish whiskey brand by sales value in China."

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Ireland once ruled the whiskey-producing world, but a failure to move with the times and technology saw it fall behind Scottish brands – and at one point almost disappear completely.

Now, new distillers like Powerscourt are rekindling a fire for Irish whiskey - after all, whiskey's origin story began in Ireland, where monks are believed to have brought distilling techniques back from their travels several centuries ago.

Now Irish distillers are looking to the East, and a new discerning middle-class market that's learning the Irish word sláinte - or gan-bei, in Chinese.

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