Less than an hour’s drive west from Dublin, lies the small town of Kilbeggan - a town that has been home to many distilleries over the years and it’s obvious why - there’s plenty of fresh water to turn into whiskey and bogs to provide the fuel to power the stills and Westmeath itself is a great barley producing county

 

The most famous of these distilleries, acknowledged as the oldest licensed distillery in the world dating back to 1757 was John Locke and Sons Distillery and it was this distillery that brought an Irish government to its knees.