Irish grain in whiskey may not allow for higher prices per bottle, but “it might be the difference between getting it on or off the shelf,” according to Michael Scully of Clonakilty Distillery who uses 100% Irish grain from local growers to produce his pot still whiskey.

Garrett Pritcher of Church of Oak distillery said when setting up a new distillery in Kildare “there wasn’t another consideration” other than Irish grain. However, this is not the case for all producers.

Teagasc’s Michael Hennessy estimated that just 65% of the grain supplied to produce Irish drinks is native grain.

Speaking at the Irish Drinks Forum last week Michael said: “We can very confidently fill all those gaps in terms of any of the grain that’s needed whether that’s a feed stock for the distilling process or it's more malt.”

Hennessy said that Irish grain supports Irish brands and that there is “huge potential for growth” because out of 1m tonnes of spring barley just 23% is grown for malting. The majority of the remaining spring barley is sold for animal feed, but most can be malted.

He noted that a lot of care goes into growing malting barley, but weather and nature have a big impact and there is no guarantee that it will meet specifications and deliver a premium price over feed barley. He told the room of drinks producers “no more than yourselves farmers take a big risk putting seed in the ground.”

Michael explained that using data from Teagasc and Tirlán Irish spring malting barley has a carbon footprint 33% lower than anywhere else in the world.

“If you want to reduce your CO2 emissions by one-third what’s the easy thing to do? Make sure you buy Irish.

“That’s where we’re at, that’s how good Irish farmers are. That’s the system we’re involved in,” he said.