Irish Distillers’ plant in Midleton, Co Cork is Ireland’s largest distillery, producing some of the world’s best-known whiskeys, including Jameson and Powers. As the distillery planned to gradually increase its annual production capacity from 34 million litres to 64 million litres, PJ Hegarty carried out a significant project to upgrade, expand and modernise the facilities in order to facilitate the increased capacity.
The Midleton distillery plant opened in 1975 on the site of the Old Distillery and was running at near full capacity and thus required an expansion of its warehouse capacity. P.J Hegarty added three further warehouses, as well as a new stillhouse, an additional tank-farm, and a new wastewater treatment plant facility.
Re-roofing and cladding was also carried out on existing warehouses, the brewhouse, still house and other buildings. Other works included extensions to the brewhouse, product store, feeds recovery and vat house, as well as underground upgrades to services, an internal site road upgrade, and general maintenance as required.
A new fire water retention pond was constructed adjacent to the wastewater treatment plant, with the creation of a large pond with a capacity of 7,600 m3 that involved the demolition of a warehouse, which significantly enhanced the environmental protection of the site.