Last Updated on July 13, 2023 by nicole

Jonathan Egan, a sixth-generation Egan, has taken on the momentous task of revitalizing his family’s renowned business. In 2015, he emerged as the refounder of Egan’s Irish Whiskey, a brand deeply rooted in history and tradition. The parent company, P. & H. Egan, was originally established in the year 1852 by Jonathan’s ancestors, marking the inception of a legacy that spanned five generations. Situated in Tullamore, Ireland, the business thrived for decades under the stewardship of four successive generations until it encountered challenges leading to the voluntary administration of its whiskey operations in 1968.

However, after a long period of hibernation, Egan’s Whiskey resurfaced on the global stage in 2015, thanks to the combined efforts of Jonathan Egan, a resurrector, his distant cousin Maurice Egan, and the esteemed presence of John Ralph, a drinks industry expert, and close confidant. As a refounder, Jonathan embraced his family’s whiskey heritage and traditions, breathing new life into the brand and pushing it forward into the modern era.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• Jonathan explains the history and heritage of Egan’s Whiskey, which began in 1852 in Tullamore, Ireland, and shares his motivation for resurrecting the family business
• The changing landscape of Irish whiskey and how rarity drives premiumization
• Jonathan discusses the sourcing process of Egan’s Whiskey from other distilleries. Explore the locations and methods used to find the base whiskey for Egan’s blends
• Discover the measures taken by Egan’s Whiskey to ensure consistency and continuity along the P. & H. Egan line
• Explore how Egan’s Whiskey differentiates itself in a market filled with new and revived brands. Discover the unique qualities and characteristics that set Egan’s Whiskey apart
• Explore Egan’s whiskey lineup, featuring Egan’s Fortitude Whiskey
• Find out where whiskey enthusiasts can find Egan’s Whiskey in the United States as Jonathan discusses the brand’s distribution strategy
• Egan’s Conviction Irish Whiskey, a tribute to Henry Egan
• Jonathan delves into the reasons behind the decision to move away from whiskey in 1968
• How Egan’s Irish Whiskey differentiates itself from Scotch and the strategies employed to stand out on US store shelves
• Jonathan provides a glimpse into the future, discussing upcoming expressions and limited editions from Egan’s Whiskey

In this episode with Jonathan Egan

We delve into the captivating story of Egan’s Whiskey with Jonathan Egan, the driving force behind the brand’s resurrection in 2015. Discover the origins of Egan’s Whiskey, tracing back to its establishment in Tullamore, Ireland as P. & H. Egan in 1852. Explore the challenges and motivations that led Jonathan to revive his family’s business and breathe new life into the iconic brand. 

In today’s episode of the Legends Behind the Craft podcast, Drew Thomas Hendricks and Bianca Harmon are joined by Jonathan Egan, 6th Generation Brand Custodian and Refounder of Egan’s Irish Whiskey. Gain insights into the sourcing process, consistency, and the legacy that Jonathan upholds in the production of Egan’s Whiskey. Explore the unique positioning of Egan’s in a competitive market and get a glimpse of exciting upcoming expressions and limited editions. Tune in to this captivating journey into the past, present, and future of Egan’s Whiskey, a testament to heritage and passion in the world of Irish whiskey.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Drew Thomas Hendricks on LinkedIn
• Barrels Ahead
• Bianca Harmon on LinkedIn
• Jonathan Egan on LinkedIn
• Egan’s Whiskey
• P. & H. Egan
• Maurice Egan on LinkedIn
• John Ralph on LinkedIn
• Genesis – Egans
• Great Northern Distillery
• Brewhall
• 7109 Whiskey Barrel Aged Imperial Stout
• Egan’s Fortitude Whiskey
• Total Wine & More
• Egan’s Conviction Irish Whiskey

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Barrels Ahead.

Barrels Ahead is a wine and craft marketing agency that propels organic growth by using a powerful combination of content development, Search Engine Optimization, and paid search.

At Barrels Ahead, we know that your business is unique. That’s why we work with you to create a one-of-a-kind marketing strategy that highlights your authenticity, tells your story, and makes your business stand out from your competitors.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Drew Thomas Hendricks here. I’m the host of the Legends Behind the Craft podcast. On the show, I talk with leaders in the wine and craft beverage industry. Before we get on with the show, we’ve gotta have a brief sponsor message. Today’s episode, it’s sponsored by Barrels Ahead. Barrels Ahead we help the wine and craft industry scale their business through authentic content.

Go to barrelsahead.com today to learn more. Today I’m super excited to talk with Jonathan Egan. Jonathan’s a sixth-generation Egan, and in 2015 he resurrected his family business and is the refounder of Egan’s Irish Whiskey. Welcome to the show, Jonathan.

[00:00:36] Jonathan Egan: Thanks so much for having me today, Drew.

[00:00:38] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Thank you so much for being on.

Gosh, I gotta ask you what’s, talk to me about this refounding of an Irish Whiskey.

[00:00:44] Jonathan Egan: Hi. Hi Bianca. Good to see you too.

[00:00:46] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, yes and Bianca is joining us.

[00:00:48] Bianca Harmon: Good to see you. Thanks, Jonathan.

[00:00:50] Jonathan Egan: Sure. So I know refounder, it sounds a little bit bizarre. What’s that all about?

Egan’s Whiskey, the parent company is P. & H. Egan was originally started in the year of our Lord 1852, and that goes back five generations ago. And the business started in 1852 in Tullamore County Offaly Ireland. And it went, ran continuously through four generations of Egans to my grandfather Patrick Valentine. And due to many different reasons and we can go through that during the podcast. The whiskey side of the business was put into voluntary administration in 1968.

And so then it hibernated until, as you said 2015 when we relaunched Egan’s Irish Whiskey unto the global stage. I’m a refounder, a resurrector co-resurrector in concert with a distant cousin, Maurice Egan and a drinks industry ninja called John Ralph also happens to be one of my best friends. So yeah.

[00:02:01] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s amazing. So when, in 2015, like talk to me about this refounding. Yeah. So go back like, so 2013, you’re thinking we should restore a family whiskey brand. What caused you to try to get into this industry and to do all the, work it takes to launch a brand again?

[00:02:11] Jonathan Egan: Sure. So, I mean, look a lot of, a lot of it goes down to nostalgia. And I would visit my aforesaid grandfather Patrick Valentine in the nineties in Ireland and the eighties rather. The mid to late eighties, early nineties. And I would go to Tullamore and he’d sit me on his lap and he’d show me all of these old barrels and beer bottles and labels and mirrors.

And I was like, “Papa, what is this? What’s all about?” And he said, “Well in the good old days we used to be, whiskey paddlers, beer brewers, blenders, bonders, and bottlers.” I said, “What’s that papa?” And so he would take me down to Tullamore and he would show me the bonded warehouse or where the canal, where the whiskey would come up from Dublin.

Where did the maltings was? Where they made produce the malted barley. And they just, I just was never able to eke that outta my mind. And, I guess looking at the, at the growth of Irish Whiskey, either double-digit annual trend, I guess you could see that, I was actually stationed in Shanghai, in China at the time.

And I could see, the growth of obviously primarily driven by Jameson and these other smaller brands. And I said, you know what we have is, which I think is a little bit different, is that we have bonafide a heritage. And with the proper storied history. That’s entrenched in Ireland, in the Midlands of Ireland, in the heart of Ireland, which is what we have on the bottle.

And I, that it became my ambition to say, if I don’t do it, who’s gonna do it? And so I ran a campaign through the family to say, “Hey, I want to resurrect Egan’s Irish Whiskey.” And so obviously it began before 2015 cause that’s what we launched. The story really begins, 2012, 2013, kind of looking at, you know, what devices were belonging to coup and buying stuff back, and then doing the history, historical due diligence, and seeing parties that were interested in doing and how would we launch.

And so once we got the core, you know, party together of family and you know, and my friend and business partner John Ralph, we put together a plan and we wanted to be as close to what the original P. & H. Egan were doing at the time. And what they were essentially Drew was they were blenders. So they would source great quality whiskey from the Dublin distilleries, mostly John James and John Power. And so what and so on. And then they would bring it back to Tullamore and blend it under bond. And then they would bottle it themselves. And that was actually a fairly prominent business model at the time in Ireland, you know, you didn’t have the same distribution channels as you do right now. You didn’t have next day delivery and you didn’t have semis, you know, going across the country, on a daily basis. And so when it started out in the late 18 hundreds, 19 hundreds, we originally brewers actually, so as you know that a lot of the raw ingredients and primary processes of whiskey are the same with beer.

Right. And Egans were very, were probably the most famous brewer in the Midlands of, in the Midlands in the kind of late 18 hundreds. And they were led by two ambitious brothers, Patrick and Henry Egan. That’s where the P and H comes from, son of Patrick Sr. At the time, it seemed like every single Irishman was either a Patrick, a Henry Jim, or, you know, but anyway. Yeah. So one day, Patrick said to Henry, I think we should look at whiskey. It’s blowing up in the UK, the export markets.

And, they bought these by trader barges. These are old horse-drawn barges. And the canal had been recently dug, I think in the late 1940s, connecting the Midlands of Ireland to Dublin port, which was the second busiest port in the British Empire at the time.

So it was a big, you know, export trade and import trade as well, stemming from Dublin port. So they would bring their malted barley all the way from Tullamore through the locks horse-drawn all the way up to Dublin, and they would,

[00:06:33] Drew Thomas Hendricks: How far for people that haven’t been to Ireland, how far is that?

[00:06:36] Jonathan Egan: It’s about 50 miles probably as the crow flies.

But you know, you have to, you’re on a horse-drawn barge, drawing a barge pace.

My father did it. I think at that point, obviously it was an engine. It was an old Bolinder engine, and he did it just for the crack 1 time and going along. And he said it was quite the adventure and every single lock that go along, they’d have to stew under the, at the, under the cabin. And they would literally, every lock keeper going along would have carrots or persimms, and they just dump it in, give the lock some whiskey or beer beyond their way. But, yeah, they would bring their malted barley, so their product, their semi-finished product that they were selling was the malted barley, and they sell it to Arthur Guinness.

At St. James Gate, John Power and some distillery. John James and distillery, they would trade that for LPA-proof barrels of whiskey, barrels of porter, a k a stout, aka Guinness. And then they’d bring it back down the canal to Tullamore. Take it off, it’ll be under bond, then blend it. Try to give themselves their own kind of individualized expression, and then it’ll be bottled.

And the most famous Egan’s expression was Egan’s number eight, which was work, worked in tandem with John Jameson and son. So yeah, that’s the kind of the old original story. And so we didn’t want to, we didn’t wanna disturb that. And there are a lot of great whiskeys out there.

And we have great relationships with a lot of great distilleries, and so we pride ourselves now as being more of a bonder. And we, how we differentiate ourselves is that we will do, we will bond it and age it in specific casks. Some of which are unique, and bring them onto the market that way under our, in the house of Egan.

[00:08:29] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s an ex excellent explanation of the history. So, and the powers of blending or actually just being able to source all the different whiskeys, and then it’s that aging process that really does allow you to create that distinguishness. And I think a lot of people don’t realize that especially if they don’t really know whiskey. In Ireland, how many distillers distilleries are there right now?

[00:08:50] Jonathan Egan: Oh, I think

[00:08:52] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Another spring, I know there’s a lot springing up. We were just over there two years ago, but Oh, yeah, there was an intense consolidation like in the sixties.

[00:08:59] Jonathan Egan: Absolute deluge. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that the glass count is 40-something distilleries.

[00:09:03] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Okay. That’s still nothing that what it was in the 18 hundreds, there was over a hundred. Yeah.

[00:09:08] Bianca Harmon: Wow.

[00:09:08] Jonathan Egan: 60 distilleries I think at one point. Obviously different scale and what have you, but, yeah, as you’re quite right. I mean, look, in the eighties, there was basically just three distilleries.

And then, in the nineties, then it started, you know, standing up a little bit. And now you have distilleries, you know, in the four corners of Ireland. Obviously the, you could see Middleton investing, you know, quite a bit more in developing their distillery. They need capacity, one of the bottlenecks in Ireland that you pardoned upon. But what you will notice now when you go into a liquor store in California or any, anywhere for that matter, in the Irish section, you’re seeing fewer and fewer age statement whiskeys. And the reason for that is that there just isn’t as much of the older stuff around. And so when you’re blending a whiskey and you’re putting it in, if you do want to put an age statement onto it, you can only put in the youngest whiskey that’s gone in, right? So, If you’ve got a three-year-old, a seven-year-old, a 10-year-old, and you want to put an age statement off, guess what? You’ve gotta put a three, three-year-old on it. So people aren’t necessarily going to do that if they wanna sell it for 50 bucks. Right?

But at the same token, at the same token, you’re seeing the premium end of whiskey of Irish whiskey really beginning to accelerate just to the rarity of it all. I was in Japan, three weeks ago. And we had done to come promote to Egans and our limited edition Genesis which was to celebrate 170 years since the founding, original founding of the company. And that was retailing it over at $1,200.

[00:10:45] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Wow. Wow.

[00:10:46] Jonathan Egan: So you’re going to see the premiumization of Irish whiskey really accelerate, niche premium. As you just said, you know, blended in a kind of a unique way because there just isn’t that much of the good, of the older stuff, not the good stuff, the older stuff around. So yeah, I mean, like, just to give some more stats. In Japan, for example, I was shattered. I was stunned to read. I think it was the year and year volume had grown 60-something percent. You’re on your value 98% of the time.

[00:11:19] Bianca Harmon: Wow.

[00:11:19] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yes. Wow. I could see that touring through, Ireland. I could definitely see that kind of trend, especially at bars. And then we did tour, Jameson’s and Method Madness and all the different uniqueness. But Jameson aside, where do you source most of your, because you don’t distill it yourself, you’re sourcing from other distilleries.

Where do you find your juice, or not juice, but base?

[00:11:42] Jonathan Egan: Yeah, yeah. No, you can call it juice. We can call it the water of life if you like. Right now for some of the whiskeys that we’ve released over the last kind of year and a half, and we’ll continue to over the nearish to medium term are from Great Northern Distillery, which is north of Dublin.

About an hour’s drive north of Dublin. And what we do is each year, and this is spearheaded by my third cousin Rupert. We buy, we typically buy X thousand cases worth of whiskey, which we then put into aging and bonding.

[00:12:20] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Okay.

[00:12:20] Jonathan Egan: And there in the same city. And that basically gives us the platform for 3, 4, 5 years down the line. So that safeguards ourselves. So we have contracts to safeguard that. And then on some of the premium stuff, we would source it from the market. we would do our own tests on the whiskey.

If there’s a particular cut that we like for the whiskey so that it’s soft. And it has, it’s just got that kind of Egan’s profile. And then what we do then is we do our own aging. So for example, on the genesis, that was within Banyuls casks, which just gave that amazing, amazing, elegant finish.

[00:13:04] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, I totally imagine.

[00:13:05] Jonathan Egan: Super. Just it was just absolutely gorgeous. Yeah. On a 20-year-old single malt. And then, you know, we would do Oloroso casks, Pedro Ximénez. And we actually were actually doing some, some local partnerships with brewers in North America. For example, over in British Columbia. We did one, I’m just gonna grab it, the bottle here. With Brewhall, they’re up in Vancouver. Yeah. So this one is actually won one, just recently won an award, beer award. So it’s called 7109 because it’s 7,109 miles between Vancouver to Tullamore.

[00:13:49] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh yeah. So they aged in their beer and your whiskey, or you aging their whiskey.

[00:13:53] Jonathan Egan: And then we bought, and then we did vice versa.

[00:13:55] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Okay.

[00:13:55] Bianca Harmon: That’s cool.

[00:13:56] Jonathan Egan: They shipped the casks over to us. We then aged it, our whiskey and their barrels, and then we sent the same barrels back to them to do their Imperial Stout.

[00:14:06] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, I love these collaborations.

[00:14:07] Jonathan Egan: Yeah, man. It was fantastic. And I just wish I had got myself a more. More of this beer cuz it was just so velvety and coffee-like. It was beautiful and it wasn’t, I don’t really like the really strong, Imperial Stout beers. This is just about 9% A B V. So it was just perfect.

[00:14:25] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh Yeah.

[00:14:26] Bianca Harmon: So what are you doing than to keep with the, you know, along the Patrick Egan line to keep it consistent and?

Is there a certain recipe that you’re following or what are you doing to keep it in line?

[00:14:43] Jonathan Egan: Yeah, good question. Really to be brutally honest and when we restarted back in 2015 when we bought out our first expression. It was a 10-year-old single malt. And that was basically because the last iteration from Egans in the sixties was a 10-year whiskey.

I think it was a pot still. Yeah, we have, we’re cooking up, we’re trying to follow the ingredients for a new one that we’re gonna release. It’ll be a, it’ll be a number eight, either next year or 2025 which will be po possibly a pot still. So that’s something we’re working on.

A lot of obviously as you know, Irish whiskey is synonymous with pot still whiskey, and not all of ours are. But you know, we’re, we’re in an era of innovation right now. You see like, you know, anything from collaborations to mixing of blends. Five years ago you couldn’t really get an Irish whiskey that wasn’t coming from an ex -, you know, Jack Daniel Barrel, right?

[00:15:41] Bianca Harmon: Yeah.

[00:15:42] Jonathan Egan: Whereas now you’ve got from all over the world I’ve seen whiskeys. In fact, I was in the Nikka Distillery in Japan, and they were sending barrels over to Ireland. I thought we would beat them to the post, but sadly, no. In Tasmania, they’re sending barrels from Tasmania over to Ireland and

[00:15:59] Bianca Harmon: Wow.

[00:16:00] Jonathan Egan: So you’re really, yeah, there’s a lot going on. It’s really exciting time for Irish whiskey and I think that innovation is driving the growth.

[00:16:08] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, it makes it easy. On one hand, it makes it really easy to enter the market cuz there’s so many people trying to, there’s so much innovation. So people are open and receptive. But on the other hand, there’s so many new brands and so many old brands being new again. And so many wish for whiskeys on the bottle. So how does Egan’s differentiate itself in your reestablishing this?

[00:16:30] Jonathan Egan: Sure. I respect anybody that’s got the balls to go and launch an Irish whiskey and launch it in North America because it costs so much money to put it in the bottle costs even more money to put it on the shelf and get it off the shelf.

[00:16:45] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, I have to say, you have some of the best packaging I’ve seen in the industry.

[00:16:48] Jonathan Egan: Oh, yeah.

[00:16:49] Bianca Harmon: Yeah.

[00:16:49] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I mean, this even comes with a pin.

[00:16:52] Jonathan Egan: Yeah. So we won an award actually for this particular one, for packaging award, I think in San Francisco. So, yeah. And then underneath the lapel, the pin, there’s actually a little booklet.

[00:17:04] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah.

[00:17:04] Jonathan Egan: Booklet and it tells you a little bit about, about the history of the brand and so on. So to answer your original question, and I’m not trying to be facetious, but you know, it’s the barriers to entry are bigger than you think. You’ve gotta be on the shelf for a certain period of time to generate momentum.

And when you’ve got so many new players coming in to keep the attention, it’s not easy. Right? So I think what you try to lean on is who we are, right? So we do have heritage, we go back 170 years, there’s actual family involved, right? So there’s, Egan’s is on the name and Egan’s is my name.

And so when you’re going around, especially, certain markets doing tastings, it’s actually an owner that’s there. It’s not just a brand ambassador. Nothing wrong with being a brand ambassador, but it’s nice to actually talk to someone who’s, who’s helped get it from, from being the bottling it, to actually putting it on the shelf and presenting it to you. So I think that’s good for us. I think, our tag, our tagline is for extraordinary tastes. A lot of our expressions are pretty unique. They’re pretty exciting. The whiskey that Bianca has, the filter

[00:18:10] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. Talk, say about the different lineups. So Bianca’s got the Foundation?

[00:18:14] Bianca Harmon: So what would’ve been your first one? Fortitude.

[00:18:18] Jonathan Egan: Yeah. Yeah. So the Fortitude there, you have there. That’s probably my favorite drinking whiskey for my Friday and Saturday night Manhattan. That particular ball you’re holding, Bianca. So we were quite bold when we brought that we were the first Irish whiskey brand to release a single malt Irish whiskey exclusively aged in Pedro Ximénez sherry casks.

So we were the first

[00:18:41] Bianca Harmon: Yeah, I read that. That’s amazing.

So, you know, we, that’s how we kind of try to differentiate. That’s where the extraordinary tastes comes in. And what does it mean? Explain to me that, you know, non-chilfiltered.

[00:18:55] Jonathan Egan: Yeah. The like some of the blended whiskeys are chilfiltered, like probably Jameson, I believe. Tully maybe. We feel the whiskey’s good enough on its own. It doesn’t need to be chilfiltered, you know?

[00:19:08] Bianca Harmon: Okay.

Every extra, you know, filtration it takes you know, more proteins and out of the whiskey and we don’t feel like it needed to do that. So

[00:19:23] Drew Thomas Hendricks: You can over purify then you just,

[00:19:26] Jonathan Egan: It’s over-purifying if you’ve got a good raw ingredient, to begin with, you don’t necessarily need to do all that, you know?

[00:19:31] Drew Thomas Hendricks: There’s yeah, there, and especially in hard alcohol, there’s so much importance placed on like filtration and six times you just purified into anonymity.

[00:19:41] Jonathan Egan: Right. That’s it. So, you know, and then it’s what you basically just got a shooter whiskey, right? So, you know, we’re not a, so we’re not a shooter whiskey. I mean, you can, and I have done, but you know, it’s to savor, it’s to sit down. If you’re at that price point, and if you’re, if you’ve got ambitions of being a premium whiskey, you don’t want to be shooting it. You wanna be savory, you wanna be thinking about it, you wanna be discussing it, you want to be holding the palate and you want that long finish.

And you get that long finish from Egan. We’re generally on the higher ABV, side. I think they’re both 50, 46% I believe. So you’ve got that rich mouthy feel. You’ve got that nice long finish. You’ve got a nice heat, you don’t have a burn. So we, we’re gonna stick to that formula as much as we can.

Yeah. So the Fortitude, do you wanna try the Fortitude?

[00:20:28] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah.

[00:20:29] Bianca Harmon: Yeah, sure.

[00:20:31] Jonathan Egan: So like I said it’s been exclusively aged in PX casks on the nose itself. You’ll get quite a heavy sherry on it and

[00:20:39] Bianca Harmon: It’s got an incredible nose.

[00:20:41] Jonathan Egan: Yeah. It’s really, really fragrant nose. And then on the pal,

[00:20:45] Bianca Harmon: I smell ’em like whiskeys and it’s like, oh God, this is like, wow.

[00:20:51] Jonathan Egan: Yeah. It’s definitely stands out from the crowd and it’s you know, it’s a perfect for kind of after dinner. You know? I think it’s an after dinner drink for me. If I’m not having dinner, I can have this as well. But I think, yeah, it works really well by itself. If you add a little bit of water, it opens it up a little bit further. That’s what my mom loves to do. Maybe just a little bit of ice. Don’t kill it with too much ice. I really feel, don’t understand when people do that sometimes, but and then I, like I said, you know, it really makes works great in Manhattan. So on the mouth, then you’re gonna get quite a bit of a bit of peanut marzipan, again a bit of velvet and then it’s a creamy multi and a nice and long finish on it.

Yeah, it’s very very delicious. I’m glad you like it.

[00:21:44] Bianca Harmon: Yeah. My husband’s been very excited for this.

[00:21:46] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, great. As far as distribution in the United States, where can people find this in the us?

[00:21:52] Jonathan Egan: Yeah. So we fortuitously did a deal, an exclusive deal with Total Wine & More. Just literally before the pandemic hit. And it was a real stroke of luck. We really are appreciative and grateful for the Total Wine partnership. They’re a wonderful customer. I think we’re in 20, 27 states. I could be wrong, but it’s something along those lines. We’re on their Spirits Direct program. So yeah, Total Wine & More. And like I said, it was great because, you know, obviously during the pandemic, a lot of the on-premises were sadly shut. So people could still get their fix of Egan’s if they wanted.

[00:22:32] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Sure. Sure is. Talk about the pandemic. So you were selling a couple years into, before the pandemic?

[00:22:38] Jonathan Egan: Yeah.

[00:22:38] Drew Thomas Hendricks: You started in 2015. When was the first go-to market date?

[00:22:43] Jonathan Egan: Yeah, so it was actually, we went to market in Boston in November, I think it was 2015.

[00:22:50] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, okay. So you had a good five, six years.

[00:22:52] Jonathan Egan: Yeah, we did. And we, at the time we basically picked, tried to pick and choose our battles In the various states. We thought it’d be a great idea to go into the states with, the larger Irish diasporas. And that was a good and a bad thing. It’s not just the Irish Americans who drink whiskey, you know? And, but we were really

[00:23:13] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, and a lot of the Irish Americans are very passionate about their whiskey, and

[00:23:16] Jonathan Egan: They are.

[00:23:16] Drew Thomas Hendricks: They got their blend that they’ve just drank for 20 years, and that’s what they wanted do.

[00:23:21] Jonathan Egan: That’s the thing. But we made the sad mistake that every single Irish brand that the first stop they make is Boston. It’s the closest to, it’s the closest to Ireland. And then next thing, you’ve got 50 Irish brands that you’re competing against.

[00:23:32] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Ah, yes.

[00:23:33] Jonathan Egan: So we then, we took a strategy, a kind of a top tier city, like at a second tier city strategy and tried to just create small brush fires around the country as opposed to just having a huge national strategy, which we didn’t really have the budget, to execute.

We basically did relationships with certain distributors in certain states. And then, when we got the offered the deal with Total Wine, we took it, you know? It just suited us and you can activate campaigns easier. You’re talking with, you know, you’re not talking with 50 different reps, you’re talking to one or two reps.

And it was a partnership that suited us just in our scale, you know, where we are the business plan. So yeah, it’s a Total Wine & More for now. I believe we’ve got a dispensation to come into Illinois and California again. So we’ll probably, yeah, so I’m obviously in Chicago now, so we’ll probably come back in with momentum beverage here in Illinois, and also in California as well. Yeah, so that’s the plan for 2023.

[00:24:41] Drew Thomas Hendricks: No, that’s brilliant. I mean, a lot of people talk about, I mean we talked to a lot of craft distilleries and how they make their dent and picking those little bread, like I love what you said, the brush fires across the country and seeing which one kind of sparks and ignites. Great analogy.

[00:24:57] Jonathan Egan: Right. And the way you wanna do it is you wanna pick a pocket, you wanna look, you know the demographics and if you have a pub that’s selling Egan’s, you need to have, you know, a liquor store within a mile or there. So that person can go and you can activate it both ways, right? So

[00:25:16] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Sure.

[00:25:16] Bianca Harmon: Right.

[00:25:17] Jonathan Egan: You’re drinking in O’Donoghues, ah, I like this. Where can I get it? Well, you can get it in the total wine down the street, you know, and I, and vice versa. So that’s kind of our approach that we’ve been trying to, trying to nourish.

[00:25:31] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Very interesting. And the so on the lineup. I have the Conviction here. It looks like it’s Cognac finished.

[00:25:41] Jonathan Egan: Yes, that’s right. Yeah. So it’s a blend. And we said we’d never do a blend. We’ll never do a blend. We’re only single malt and we did a blend. But this is a wonderful,

[00:25:52] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, is that the way you started? You were only gonna do single malts? That was,

[00:25:54] Jonathan Egan: Yeah. Yeah. That was the original plan, you know, in our wisdom, we

[00:25:58] Bianca Harmon: Never say never.

[00:26:00] Jonathan Egan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s like a fauci metaphor. You got new data, you make new decisions.

[00:26:05] Bianca Harmon: Yep.

[00:26:07] Jonathan Egan: So does this is a marriage of single malt, a single grain whiskey.

The single malt is aged 10 years and it’s been, yeah. Married together in the ex cognac, casks. So have you opened the bottle?

[00:26:21] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I did open it. I did open it right at the start. At the couldn’t wait. I couldn’t wait right at the start of the show. I wanted to kind of breathe into the glass here. I’d been waiting. I’d been waiting for this.

[00:26:30] Jonathan Egan: Oh, very good.

[00:26:30] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Till this podcast. This was the first time I had it. Unbelievable palate. Oh, real. Almost a real glycerol kind of quality to it with a, you can definitely, well, I’ll get that sherry.

[00:26:44] Jonathan Egan: Like, if I could steal the moment and toast you both and wish you both a happy new year. Bianca and Drew?

[00:26:49] Bianca Harmon: Yes. Cheers. Happy New Year.

[00:26:53] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Beautiful color.

[00:26:54] Bianca Harmon: It is.

[00:26:55] Jonathan Egan: What did you get on the nose, Drew?

[00:26:59] Drew Thomas Hendricks: A little bit of a honeyed. Little bit. Yeah. It’s a real, it’s not a, it’s not a real smokey, it’s a real clean, clean.

[00:27:06] Jonathan Egan: No. There’s no smoke in this one. It’s, it’s got a hint of vanilla that a dried apricot on the nose.

[00:27:11] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, definitely Get the dried apricot.

[00:27:14] Jonathan Egan: And then the taste.

[00:27:15] Drew Thomas Hendricks: For me, it’s on the palate. I mean, the nose is amazing, but I can’t believe like the after aroma and the finish just keeps evolving.

[00:27:25] Jonathan Egan: On the taste. You got the kind of new leather, sultanas, almond, bit of chocolate there, quite zesty, and then that long and gentle finish, which I think is hope that we’re trying to recreate in every whiskey, you know? For me

[00:27:44] Drew Thomas Hendricks: It’s a super elegant –

[00:27:46] Jonathan Egan: You can tell a good whiskey by its finish, you know?

[00:27:49] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. Absolutely delicious. And I gotta commend you the packaging. I mean, I don’t want to, I don’t wanna take anything away from the taste, but I mean the labels little raised text and to put it in a black bottle.

[00:28:01] Jonathan Egan: Yeah. Yeah, it was really hard. We had to work, with the bottler, the company we bought the, not the bottler per se, but the company we bought the bottles off to get that actual black, we actually had to do several different runs of it. Get the Pantone right. And the adhesions that we could get, the etchy on it.

But can I tell you a little bit about the name, the Conviction name?

[00:28:21] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:28:22] Jonathan Egan: So this is a tribute to Henry Egan, who’s my great, great, great uncle. And he was a man of the people. He was the chairman of P. & H. Egan at the time, which was the foremost employer of the town more than D. E. W. D.E Williams, the DEW that we had been mentioning earlier on.

So D.E Williams, which is what Tullamore Dew stands for Daniel Edmund Williams. And P. & H. Egan were the main employers in Tullamore. In late 19th and 60 years of the 20th century. But the Egans were actually a larger business. They had, they because they were involved in hotels and bottling and ironmongery and general merchants. And they were importing cherries and teas and what have you. And one of the taglines they said was, you know, Egans from the cradle to the grave because when you came into the world as a baby, you would buy your cradle and your crib from Egans. And when you died, the Egans would bury you as well. They were involved in all different, different businesses.

But back to Henry Egan, Henry himself, he, Patrick was more the commercial guy, and Henry was more the political guy, and he was a big advocate of land reform in Ireland. So you, if you could picture, post-famine in Ireland, it was still very much dominated by the land acts, coercion acts, and the British. And the land that what majority of it was still owned by the British. And so he would have campaigns and organize these monster rallies where the peasant farmers would come out and protest against their, you know, their British landlords. About what was happening.

And it was a really difficult time in Ireland as you can well imagine, and I’m sure you’ve read up about it as well. But he was actually thrown into prison for his conviction. Oh, in Irish non de form. Rights for the Irish people, the Catholic Irish, so it was the emancipation and what have you and the play in words is that he was a convict as well cuz he was thrown into – jail for nine months in 1881, I believe.

So that’s the kind of play in words for where conviction comes from.

[00:30:36] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s great. That’s very cool. And how did he get out? Or did he?

[00:30:42] Jonathan Egan: He was released. He was released and when he was released, he was voted in unanimously as the mayor of Tullamore. The chairman of the ca the county council, which just kind of the same thing.

And he served four terms as the chairman of Tullamore directly after he was released from prison. So he was, yeah, he was a, he was an amazing character, amazing person. That you did a lot for the town of Tullamore. They brought the electric there, gas, potable water. Yeah, so I’m obviously very proud of that, and that’s, you know, part of what we’re trying to sell and be part of our brand and be heritage that we can be proud of.

Obviously, we have the endeavor there as well. Fortitude, these are all kind of leaning on the past, on our forefathers and the traits they had and we’re celebrating the past that way.

[00:31:27] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And I’m curious about the past, but 1968, why they chose to move away from whiskey.

[00:31:33] Jonathan Egan: Yeah. The main business at the time for P. & H. Egan Egan was they were general merchants, so they were importers and exporters. The whiskey, I don’t think was the biggest side of the business. Brew the brewing was. And you had the advent of retail supermarkets come in. And I think we could blame external elements, we also have to look in and say you know, I guess they didn’t manage it well enough. And I think a lot of these multi-generational family businesses, you know, you get to the third and fourth generation, you’ve got you know, different family branches and so I don’t really know. That’s the story.

[00:32:08] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I think it was, I think it was in the consolidation. I mean if I, in the si whole sixties, everything was consolidated into just the big three.

[00:32:17] Jonathan Egan: Everything was consolidating, but the damage was done decades before that, Drew. The damage was done with prohibition which basically was a huge export market that prevented Ireland from going.

The damage was done by the British imposing these very steep duties on non-Scottish, non-British whiskeys. And the damage was done with a coffee exporting the column still method to, to Scotland. And they were able to produce cheap whiskeys that cheap good style whiskeys.

[00:32:50] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Sure.

[00:32:50] Jonathan Egan: The Irish, us being as stubborn as you can imagine, not wanting to deviate from the pot still method and all those things, just had a crushing effect in it.

And we were never distilling ourselves. We were always sourcing the whiskey. And all those things had a big effect on it. And yeah. But I think, you know, to look at being optimistic about it, Irish whiskey now.

[00:33:13] Drew Thomas Hendricks: We’re in a Renaissance.

[00:33:14] Jonathan Egan: Yeah, we are in a true Renaissance period right now, Drew. No question about it. I mean, all the markets you look at are just enjoying double-digit growth and it doesn’t, it’s not going to stop. It’s generating momentum of its own right now. And I think, is it 2030 or so on? I think we will possibly be a bigger category than Scotch. And who could have imagined that?

[00:33:34] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Unbelievable.

[00:33:36] Bianca Harmon: Wow. That’s incredible.

[00:33:38] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Talking about being a bigger category than Scotch, like how on the store shelves in the US how do, how does Egan’s work to distinguish itself or differentiate itself? I know they’re two different kind. We know all the difference between Scotch and Ireland, but you’re still competing for shelf space.

[00:33:51] Jonathan Egan: Yeah.

[00:33:52] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I think you’re kind of the larger, the more Irish whiskeys there are the, probably the easier chance it is to have more shelf space.

[00:33:59] Jonathan Egan: Yeah. I think though typically outside of kind of your main metropolitan areas, It’s still very much Scotch dominated that I’ve noticed anyway.

Maybe in your more metro areas, you’ll see, but I still would say it’s 30, 40% Irish. 60, 70% Scotch. That’s just anecdotally how I feel about it. And I haven’t looked at the data, but I would say that’s probably what it is. But was any

[00:34:26] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Then you’re looking at the, then you’re looking at bourbons and you’re looking at all the Japanese whiskeys that are coming out.

[00:34:32] Jonathan Egan: Yeah. Yeah. The Japanese whiskey though. The thing with, the problem with Japanese whiskeys, there’s really no cheap Japanese whiskeys now, so it’s all top shelf. Your Hibiki, your Yoichi Distillery, there’s yeah. So if there’s any shelf the Japanese are on, it’s a top shelf or they’re locked in a cabinet somewhere.

But, yeah, I’m sure you’ve had a lot of great bourbon principles on here to talk about their category. Like bourbon is still on, bourbon is on fire.

[00:34:55] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, absolutely. We had Bardstown on a few months ago.

[00:34:58] Jonathan Egan: Oh, you did? I must listen to him and hear his ruminations about it.

And what I can understand about the bourbon market and what they’re doing so well is how they’re able to keep the value in what they’re in their products. You don’t see that many cheap bourbons,

Five years ago we got in and we were doing. We were doing an analysis on price pointing. What can we sell out that? And we were only getting 29 99 depending on the state and its state income, state taxes. Say 29 to 34 99 for 10 year old single malt Irish whiskey versus a five year old Maker’s Mark or something. Yeah. Four year old Maker’s, Mark.

[00:35:38] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah.

[00:35:39] Jonathan Egan: It didn’t seem fair, it didn’t seem like it was apples and oranges. But they’ve been able to do that and kudos to them. But now I think you, you’re seeing it kind of, I think we’re kind of, I think we’re getting to where we should be right now.

[00:35:52] Drew Thomas Hendricks: No, I agree.

[00:35:54] Jonathan Egan: Yeah. So, yeah, it’s intriguing time. Very interesting, you know, obviously a lot of new players coming in, you’re gonna see a further, you mentioned consolidation earlier in, in our conversation.

You’re gonna see a further consolidation of Irish whiskey certainly in distilleries. There’s already, I think there was two sold earlier this year. It’s not easy, it’s a big cash flow, it’s a balance sheet issue. It’s getting your cash flow.

You can’t sell Irish whiskey until it’s aged for three years in a day. So you gotta be able to weather that storm, you know? And so you’re doing a lot of spot buying while you’re carrying your own liquid, getting it ready to bottle. So a lot of people that are in the business just for the vanity reason, are going to, are gonna be saying stuff. What do I get myself into? You know? Yeah. And there certainly isn’t enough room in the market for 40 brands. We just, I don’t think there is anyway. So,

[00:36:44] Drew Thomas Hendricks: No. I feel like, I feel like we have 30 whiskey brands here in Southern California that just popped up, that are all doing their micro distilleries.

[00:36:51] Jonathan Egan: Yeah. Well, are they, are they local to California?

[00:36:55] Drew Thomas Hendricks: They’re local, but they do distribute out a little bit through, like speakeasy or any one of those like online networks.

[00:37:03] Jonathan Egan: Well, I think you’re definitely gonna get, they, they’re, here in the us I mean it’s, I think the big advantage is you’re able to scale.

And you create your own brush fire locally. You have your experience center, you do your lunches, you do your tastings, you do consumer and corporate, and then you’re able to kind of scale out of that. And if you do well in Southern California, you get Northern California, Nevada, you know, that’s the biggest advantage.

[00:37:28] Drew Thomas Hendricks: You’re going national. So that’s a whole different strategy.

[00:37:31] Jonathan Egan: Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. And you need a big, you need a big wall for that as well.

[00:37:37] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, absolutely. I know we’re wrapping down here, but I want to ask you, so on the horizon, what sort of different expressions or limited editions might you have coming up?

[00:37:46] Jonathan Egan: So we still have some Banyuls casks, that we just think makes the most amazing whiskey out of. So we’re gonna continue with that. We’re gonna continue with sherry. We’re going to go there. The pot still method, pot still, sorry, distilled whiskey. But I won’t be able to tease you on when that will be released. Still working on that, but I think it’ll be, it’ll be tactical and strategic tactical.

We’ll be doing more partnerships with local brewers to try to get ourselves noticed. As I say, the hub and spoke of being in the pub and then being in the liquor store down the road.

And then we will also, we’ll, we’ll be limited editions along with our mainstays, which will probably be the, our endeavor, our fortitude, our vintage grain, probably for the next two to three years.

So we need them for the week in, week out sales. And then we need the, we have the limited releases to catch the eyes of the like of yours, the likes of yourself and Bianca. The whiskey, the whiskey reviewers, the bloggers, you know, you gotta be in people’s faces as much as possible, right?

So kind of tactical, strategic. So I think, yeah, to answer your original question, I’m sorry for deviating, I see Banyuls, PX sherry, maybe more virgin oak, possibly a little more imperial stout, and a mixture of all and all four or five as well, which is what endeavor is actually.

[00:39:09] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, that’s super cool.

Jonathan, as we’re wrapping down, is there anything that we haven’t asked or talked about that you’d like to bring up?

[00:39:15] Jonathan Egan: Not at all. You’ve given me, I’ve, you’ve given me an hour to chew your ears off and I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

[00:39:21] Bianca Harmon: I love it.

[00:39:21] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Excellent conversation. This, this whiskey’s fantastic.

[00:39:26] Jonathan Egan: I really appreciate that.

[00:39:28] Bianca Harmon: Yeah.

[00:39:29] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Thank you so much for joining us today. Absolutely.

[00:39:31] Jonathan Egan: Wish you both a big slide and happy year.

[00:39:33] Bianca Harmon: Cheers.