Jones Road Distillery
The Jones Road Distillery in 1886
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| Location | Dublin |
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| Coordinates | 53°21′47.538″N 6°14′54.0344″W / 53.36320500°N 6.248342889°WCoordinates: 53°21′47.538″N 6°14′54.0344″W / 53.36320500°N 6.248342889°W |
| Owner | Dublin Whiskey Distillery Company |
| Founded | 1873 |
| Status | Defunct |
| Water source | Royal Canal, onsite |
| No. of stills | 4 pot stills |
| Capacity | 800,000 gallons |
| Mothballed | 1926, possibly with irregular distilling to circa 1945 |
| D.W.D. | |
| Type | Single Pot Still Whiskey |
The Jones Road Distillery, was an Irish whiskey distillery located beside the river Tolka, in Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland. Trading as the Dublin Whiskey Distillery Company Ltd (DWD), the distillery produced whiskey from its establishment in 1873, until its closure in 1926, though some operations may have continued until the late 1940s. It was one of the last distilleries to be built in Dublin, once a distilling powerhouse, until the construction of the Teeling Whiskey Distillery in 2015.
Unlike the other Dublin distilleries, which began as family-run enterprises, the Jones Road Distillery was established by a consortium of seven businessmen. Construction began in July 1872, and by July 1873 mashing had commenced. However, unfortunately for the consortium, although amongst the most modern in existence at the time, as the distillery opened just as the Irish whiskey industry was entering a period of decline, it is likely that it only ever operated at its capacity for its first decade of production.
When the British historian, Alfred Barnard visited the distillery not long after it opened in 1886, he reported that it was equipped with some of the best and most modern distilling equipment available at that time, and had a capacity of 800,000 gallons per annum. However, its output at that time was just 560,000 gallons, well below its potential. Barnard reported that whiskey from the distillery was exported to England, India and "the Colonies".
By 1891, just twenty-two years after its construction, financial difficulties forced the distillery to merge with two of the "big four" Dublin distilleries, William Jameson & Co.'s Marrowbone Lane Distillery, and George Roe & Co.'s Thomas Street Distillery to form the Dublin Distillers Company Limited. The amalgamated company had a combined potential capacity of 3.5 million gallons per year. However, it seems that the three distilleries continued to operated as competing concerns, without bringing about many savings due to economies of scale. Therefore, suffering from overcapacity, and without marque brands, the company continued to suffer financial difficulties. In particular, as the 1920s brought about the loss of both the American and British Commonwealth export markets during prohibition and the Anglo-Irish trade war. As a result, both the Thomas Street and Marrowbone Lane distilleries closed in 1923, with the Jones Road distillery following suit in 1926. Though as the most modern of the three plants, the Jones Road plant was likely retained as a working entity, and distilling may have continued at Jones Road until 1946.
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