The Old Bushmills Distillery in Co. Antrim has formally launched a £70m investment plan to scale up its maturation and bottling capabilities, in a significant development for Irish whiskey production. The Irish News reported on the proposals, published on 17 March 2026.

The plan comprises 26 new maturation warehouses and a new bottling facility, with 550,000 sq ft of new warehouse space providing storage for an additional half a million casks. The enhanced bottling operation will increase the site's packaging capacity from 1.6 million cases of whiskey per year to 4.5 million cases.

A full planning application has been submitted for phase two of the warehouse maturation project, which will see 26 warehouses developed across ten new buildings constructed across 44 acres at a cost of £62.9m. An application for the £6.43m bottling facility is expected to follow.

Each warehouse bay has the capacity to store around 20,000 whiskey casks, with the proposed site of the new bottling plant located on the main distillery production site.

The development plan has the potential to support the creation of around 55 jobs and follows the 2023 opening of the £37m Causeway Distillery, which effectively doubled Bushmills' production capacity.

Bushmills is already developing the first phase of a major storage project involving 29 new warehouses at Haw Road, with 16 already built and another 13 due for completion by 2028.

Subject to planning permission, phase two of the maturation warehouse expansion is expected to take around seven years to construct, while the bottling plant is expected to take around 12 months. An economic forecast submitted in support of the planning application anticipates the project could be worth around £43m for the economy over that period.

Find out more about Old Bushmills Distillery's £70m expansion plans here.