In 1826, James C. Allman established a distillery in a converted 18th Century mill, There is no record of any previous distillery operating in Bandon, nor is there any record of Allman having prior experience in distilling himself. A report at the time, showed that production between October 1826 and October 1827 totalled some 63,023 gallons. Thereafter, the distillery grew in capacity over time as profits from the initial years of operating were reinvested in the business, reaching a capacity of 200,000 per annum by 1836, and by the mid-1800s the distillery had become the largest rural distillery in Ireland, with a capacity in excess of 500,000 gallons per annum. The fire cost the life of one employee, a local man named Richard White, not connected with the establishment, who fell from a height of 12 ft while trying to extinguish the flames. In the late 19th and early 20th century, while many Scottish distillers were introducing
Coffey stills, which were cheaper to run than the traditional
pot stills, a debate raged amongst Irish distillers as to whether follow suit. Many Irish distillers, whether rightly or wrongly, considered coffey stills to produce an inferior spirit. Mirroring this debate, in 1904, another James C. Allman, the 82-year-old company senior manager banned its introduction at the Bandon Distillery, bringing him into conflict with company director JJ McDaniel, his nephew. This bottle would be doubly rare, as the
Nun's Island Distillery itself is believed to have closed circa
World War I. A son of the founder, and partner in the business,
Richard Allman sat as a Member of the
British Parliament from 1880 to 1885. ==See also==