Kinahan's -The Whiskey That Conquered The Empire

I recently wrote about The Bankers pub on the corner of Trinity Street and Dame Lane and some readers have asked me about the Kinahan Distillery and its Whiskey. Daniel Kinahan was born in the Dublin suburb, then the countryside of Goatstown in 1756. He would create one of the early global successes of Irish business ‘Kinahan’s Whiskey’ and in particular ‘Kinahan’s LL Whiskey’. The Kinahan story begins in 1779 on Trinity Street where today the Bankers public house now stands. He opened his business originally known as ‘Kinahan and Gregg’ and quickly expanded when they purchased the entire stock of wines and spirits from Messers Beatty on Andrew Street. As a grocer he took full advantage of the nearby Sugar House on Dame Court and began to distil whiskey and port. It was an instant success and became a favourite of the Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, the Royal representative in Ireland. By 1807 Charles Lennox, the then Lord Lieutenant was so impressed with their whiskey that L.L. (Lord Lieutenant) was added to the labels of all their bottles. 

 In 1818, Kinahan's business, now known as ‘Kinahan Son and Smyth’ when he joined forces with his nephew Henry Smyth, became so successful that they moved from Trinity Street to the newly built Carlisle Building at O'Connell Bridge then known as The Carlisle Bridge. After their departure from Trinity Street the building was used as a candle makers warehouse and then the building was re-developed and a public house was born which is today the Bankers.

Kinahan’s maintained a distillation plant at Boyne Street near what is today the Gingerman’s pub at the rear of Westland Row Rail station having moved originally been located on Burgh Quay. They stored their vast quantities of wines and spirits in warehouses on Denzille Street. They set up export offices in London and their global reach was not just to Britain, continental Europe and the vast British Commonwealth they even cracked the early Chinese market in the late 19th century.

The founder Daniel Kinahan died in 1827 and was succeeded by his son Robert. Robert had married Charlotte Hudson whose family home in Rathfarnham is today the Pearse Museum. Robert was active in Dublin politics and in 1853 was elected Lord Mayor of Dublin. So popular was the Kinahan brand, more widely available and sold than Jameson at the time, the company found a major issues with publicans trying to increase their margins putting inferior and cheaper whiskeys into the Kinahan’s bottles.  They took publican William Bolton of Westmoreland Street right beside their headquarters to court claiming that the publican’s use of the term ‘LL flavoured Whiskey’ was an infringement on their copyright. The company won the case which had wide reaches consequences for many decades to come. 

When Queen Victoria visited Dublin as the new century began in 1900, the only whiskey served to her Majesty and at the State banquets was Kinahan’s LL Whiskey. When Robert died in 1861 the ‘Times’ newspaper reported that over 200 carriages followed the hearse in a cortege that stretched for over one mile. According to the article in JSTOR in 2007 written by Jack Kinahan ‘Kinahan LL A forgotten Dublin Whiskey’ by the late 1800s their whiskey was ‘in a position where the terms ‘Kinahan’s’ and ‘Kinahan’s LL’ became widely accepted as shorthand for a whiskey of a specific price, quality and reputation. They even claimed in the advertising that the medical journal 'The Lancet' recommended the whiskey as containing medicinal qualities. To honour this business colossus Kinahan Street in Stoneybatter was named after the family.

Robert was followed by his son Edward Hudson Kinahan who was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1887 but he passed in 1892 leaving his son also known as Edward to take the reigns of the company when he returned from military service in India in 1895. Edward ran the business with his cousin George Kinahan but when he died in 1903, the business began to struggle as trade ebbed away from the company and there was a consolidation of other distilleries into bigger companies.

Their corporate headquarters Carlisle House was sold to William Martin Murphy and Kinahan’s merged with another well-known Dublin Wine and Spirit Merchant Bagot and Hutton. The new company Bagot, Hutton and Kinahan was dissolved in 1988.

If you visit the Banker's pub and ask Alan or Gary to point out a bottle of Kinahan's Whiskey they will be only too happy to oblige and you can stay awhile and enjoy their fine selection of whiskies and of course their hospitality.