Founder of St Patrick’s Distillery Tom Keightley sees Cork at the heart of rise in craft spirits

Trish Dromey meets Tom Keightley, the founder of St Patrick’s Distillery, who talks about its early success and plans for the future.

When selecting a suitable brand name for Irish spirit products intended for the export market, St Patrick’s Distillery in Cork seems to have chosen particularly well.

The original plan was to call the company Prátaí, to reflect the fact that it was selling spirits produced from potatoes but company founder and managing director Tom Keightley changed his mind when he discovered that Americans, the key demographic, were likely to grievously mispronounce the Irish word for potato.