The American ambassador to Ireland, Kevin O’Malley yesterday formally broke ground on a €44 million whiskey distillery and visitor’s centre on the Slane Castle estate in Co Meath.

The Slane Castle project is the result of a partnership between the Conyngham family, including Lord Henry Mountcharles, the owner of Slane Castle and the family run US drinks group Brown-Forman, which owns the Jack Daniels and Southern Comfort brands among others.

It is the first new distillery Brown-Forman has built outside of the US. Both Irish and American whiskeys are experiencing boom times at the minute.

Earlier this year Brown-Forman bought all shares of the Slane Castle Irish Whiskey Company from the Conyngham family but the Conyngham family remain centrally involved in the company and this project.

The ‘Slane Distillery and Visitor’s Centre’ will see the creation of 25 permanent jobs when complete and 80 jobs during its construction which begins next month and is expected to take 14 months.

It will have the capacity to provide more than 600,000 cases and the first whiskey will be launched in early 2017.