About Killowen
Killowen was founded in 2017 by architect Brendan Carty, who started distilling in 2019. He calls it his "protest distillery", a small-batch reaction to what he saw as Irish whiskey drifting from its roots. It is widely described as Ireland's smallest distillery and produces single pot still whiskey, poitín and gin.
The distillery sits on Knock Shee above Rostrevor, ground long tied to smuggling routes that ran French brandy into Ireland during the Napoleonic Wars. Killowen leans into that heritage with flame-fed pot stills and worm tub condensers, old methods almost nobody else still uses, and in recent years released its first five-year-old whiskey.