Comber Distillery — County Down Single Malt Whisky

Comber Distillery is a closed Irish whiskey distillery that once stood in the town of Comber, County Down, Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1825 and closed in the early 1950s, ending well over a century of pot still whiskey production on the banks of the Enler River. At its peak it was one of the largest pot still distilleries in Ireland, and when it fell silent it was the last operating pot still distillery in Northern Ireland.

History

Distilling in Comber traces back to the late 18th century, when James Patterson ran a malt kiln and distillery known as the Mound (or Old) Distillery on Killinchy Street. Ownership passed through several hands — including George Johnston, Mr. Gilbert, and, from 1826, John Miller — before a second site, the Lower Distillery, was established in 1825 by William Byrne on the site of a former paper mill, drawing water from the Enler River. By 1829 the original site alone was producing around 80,000 gallons a year, and at their combined peak the Upper and Lower distilleries employed roughly 60 workers overseen by five excise officers, together producing over 300,000 gallons of pot still whiskey annually.

John Miller ran both the Upper and Lower distilleries from 1837 until 1861, and in 1871 Samuel Bruce bought the business on Miller's retirement. Output declined steadily through the early 20th century, and an expensive modernisation programme in the 1920s, costing around £50,000, failed to reverse the distillery's fortunes.

Quick Facts

• Region: County Down, Northern Ireland
• Founded: 1825
• Owner: Closed; original Comber Distilleries Co. wound down in the 1950s. Brand rights now held by Echlinville Distillery
• Status: Closed
• Stills: Traditional Irish pot stills; relocated to Cooley Distillery after closure

Closure & Legacy

Comber distilled for the last time in 1952 and was sold in 1953 to H&D Wines of Inverness, largely for its remaining stock of maturing whiskey and its scrap value; the site passed to Hollywood & Donnelly in 1957. In 1970, Portadown wholesaler James McCabe bought the Old Comber brand and the last surviving casks, later bottling several hundred bottles of Old Comber in the early 1990s from the final reserves. The distillery buildings were demolished in stages in the early 2000s, with the smoke stack coming down in 2004, and the site was redeveloped first as a small industrial estate and later as housing; one former Comber Distilleries building on Killinchy Street survives today as a restaurant. Original Old Comber bottlings, including the small 1990s release, are highly sought after by collectors as one of Ireland's "lost" pot still whiskeys. In 2021, Echlinville Distillery on the Ards Peninsula acquired the Old Comber brand and revived it with a new single pot still whiskey, carrying the Comber name back into production after almost 70 years.